7. Peaky Blinders (2013)
The beauty of the Western is that it's always managed to adapt new surroundings; John Hillcoat and Nick Cave's 'Western' The Proposition was actually set in Australia. And it's actually the work of Hillcoat and in particular Cave that can be felt most obviously in the Birmingham-set TV drama Peaky Blinders. Civil War veterans are replaced by haunted WWI vets, and American accents are replaced by a Brummie twang, but all the other Western signifiers are here: as a thriving, lawless town full of warring outlaws (including a dead-eyed Cillian Murphy) is dragged into the 20th century, the old ways are threatened by the new lawman in town (a terrifically menacing Sam Neill). As for those Hillcoat and Cave references: Peaky Blinders is filled with ruthless violence, amoral characters working on both sides of the law and a feeling of nauseating dread, while even music from The Proposition, The Assassination of Jesse James and Cave's own band The Bad Seeds acts as the soundtrack, as if the influence wasn't already obvious enough. Only four episodes in, this already feels like a classic of Western television.