10 Most Violent Westerns Ever Made

9. The Proposition (2005)

One of Nick Cave’s greatest albums was all about murder ballads, so it’s no surprise he wrote such a brilliant and brutal screenplay in the form of 2005's The Proposition. Set in the Australian Badlands, the film follows the bleak path of a bushranger (Guy Pearce) on the the hunt for his outlaw brother.

The film opens up with images of corpses and things continue to get bleaker from there. The ordeals that bodies go through in this film are extreme: skulls explode, spears pierce through bodies, people are smashed to pieces and others are viciously beaten. Blood and grime are smeared all over this John Hillcoat directed film and souls are lost in order to save a life.

The Proposition often feels hopeless as we learn more about the cold badlands and its heartless inhabitants. Unlike Western tropes, The Proposition isn’t an exciting tail of gunslinging fun where the good guy gets the woman and everything’s okay again - it’s a gruelling, fearsome film as saddening as it is viscious.

Contributor
Contributor

An encyclopedia on European cinema, hardcore music and Lana Del Rey.