Best-Reviewed Westerns 2018

Critics Consensus: The Rider's hard-hitting drama is only made more effective through writer-director Chloé Zhao's use of untrained actors to tell the movie's fact-based tale.

Synopsis: After a riding accident leaves him unable to compete on the rodeo circuit, a young cowboy searches for a new purpose.

Starring: Brady Jandreau, Tim Jandreau, Lilly Jandreau, Lane Scott

Directed By: Chloé Zhao

Critics Consensus: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs avoids anthology pitfalls with a consistent collection tied together by the Coen brothers' signature blend of dark drama and black humor.

Synopsis: An anthology of six short films that take place in 19th-century post-Civil War era during the settling of the Old West.

Starring: Tim Blake Nelson, Willie Watson, David Krumholtz, James Franco

Directed By: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Critics Consensus: Sweet Country makes brilliant use of the Australian outback as the setting for a hard-hitting story that satisfies as a character study as well as a sociopolitical statement.

Synopsis: An Aboriginal man from the Northern Territory goes on the run after he kills a white man in self-defence in the 1920s.

Starring: Bryan Brown, Matt Day, Tremayne Doolan, Anni Finsterer

Directed By: Warwick Thornton

Critics Consensus: Bisbee '17 offers one town's reckoning with its own history as a compelling argument that the mistakes of the past are truly corrected only when they're faced head on.

Synopsis: Locals stage re-creations of the town's controversial past.

Directed By: Robert Greene

Critics Consensus: The Sisters Brothers rides familiar genre trails in occasionally unexpected ways - a satisfying journey further elevated by its well-matched leading men.

Synopsis: It's 1851, and Charlie and Eli Sisters are both brothers and assassins, boys grown to men in a savage and hostile world. The Sisters brothers... View Full Synopsis

Starring: John C. Reilly, Joaquin Phoenix, Jake Gyllenhaal, Riz Ahmed

Directed By: Jacques Audiard