3. The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford
You'd have thought that Brad Pitt could have have sold any movie, even a low-key western that opts to give its ending away in the title - and yet The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford failed to recuperate anywhere near its $30 million budget, proving that the public's appetite for slow, mediative and endlessly melancholic westerns wasn't quite there... even if Brad Pitt was the star! Despite it status as a well-known flop, however, Jesse James is one of the finest westerns in recent years - lagging pace and forced romanticism aside. What's mostly great about The Assassination of Jesse James is its realism - the wild west myth is deconstructed, as it has been so many times, but there's a lingering emphasise on accuracy, be it in the gunfights (people shooting at each other constantly miss, due to the badly-designed nature of the guns), or the lacking sense of bravado one might associate with "fun" westerns starring John Wayne. But it makes sense that this flopped; it's a difficult film, one unlikely to generate word of mouth buzz like other modern westerns such as Django Unchained.