10 Westerns You Need To Watch After Playing Red Dead Redemption 2
6. McCabe & Mrs Miller
A far cry from, well, just about anything else on this list, McCabe & Mrs Miller is an odd one, to say the least. The 1971 drama goes beyond the subgenre of the revisionist western and into the still-uncharted territory of the anti-western. There are no gunslingers or hookers with hearts of gold. Just opportunists and regular old hookers with regular old hearts of blood and viscera.
The titular McCabe is a shrewd and often cowardly businessman whose sole mysterious quality is the fact that he may have once killed a man, and Mrs Miller is a brothel madam with a keen business strategy and a debilitating addiction to opium. That's some damn fine protagonists we've got there.
Whilst these two may be the film's designated leads, the real star of the show is Robert Altman's directing, and the presentation of the town itself. The oddly named Presbyterian Church (which RDRII players may find notably similar in design to the town of Strawberry) is rich with supporting characters who dip in and out of the story's focus seamlessly. Much of the dialogue is improvised and a lot of scenes were shot from many angles simultaneously, lending an almost documentary-like feel to the film. Never has a regular night in an old west saloon seemed so convincing.
It's an unusual film, but is certainly unique. And speaking of unusual and unique...