A24/LionsgateThe final indie Western to feature on this list may be the finest Western of the year - a remarkable film from first time British writer-director John Maclean. Winner of the Sundance Institute's World Cinema Jury Prize, Slow West is a western which is true to its name, unraveling at a steady pace and allowing the viewer to get sucked into the lives of the people who inhabit the vast wilderness of the old West before delivering a virtuoso finale. Starring Kodi Smit-McPhee as Jay Cavendish and Michael Fassbender as Silas Selleck, Slow West simmers away like the sun as Selleck accompanies Cavendish on his westward mission. Slow West has the visual grace of a Coen brothers movie, not to mention sharing their sensibility for sudden switches from comedy to violence. But Mclean brings enough style of his own to the table to make it one of the stand-out debuts of the year.
