Film

Ain't Them Bodies Saints

Name: Ain't Them Bodies Saints
Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance, Western
Released: 2013
Cast: Rooney Mara, Casey Affleck, Ben Foster, Keith Carradine, Kennadie Smith

A lyrical Western about an outlaw couple separated by prison, told with the visual languor of a '70s crime film and the emotional architecture of a tragedy. Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck move through dusty Texas towns like ghosts haunting their own story. It's deliberate, melancholic, and asks whether love can survive when everything else has been taken. For viewers who prize mood and cinematography over plot momentum.

TMDb rating

3.0

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love slow-burning outlaw love stories where the landscape and the quiet glances carry more weight than the plot, and you don't mind a melancholy ache.

Skip it if you need brisk momentum or a clear sense of where the story is heading, since it drifts through long stretches of mood and sparse dialogue.

What it asks of you: Patience with long, hushed takes and a wistful rhythm that lingers on faces and open country, though at 96 minutes it never outstays its welcome.

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If you liked this

Hell or High Water2016

Modern Western about men defined by crime and loyalty, with the same Texas landscape and moral complexity. Tense and elegantly structured, it catches the desperation of characters trapped by circumstance and choice.

But It moves faster and is far more plot-driven than Ain't Them Bodies Saints—less haunting, more thriller. If you want meditative pacing, this won't deliver it.

The Outlaw Josey Wales1976

Eastwood as a man on the run, seeking reunion with family, set against the same mythic West. It has the visual poetry and elegance you'll recognize, but with clearer action and more traditional heroism underneath.

But Made in a different era with different sensibilities. Less interested in the psychological weight of crime; more interested in revenge and redemption through action.

Winter's Bone2010

Mara in a rural American landscape, pursuing an impossible quest through a criminal world. Spare, precise, and deeply sad. It shares the film's interest in how poverty and crime fracture families and steal futures.

But Set in the Ozarks, not the West, and driven by survival necessity rather than romantic passion. The tone is bleaker and the story more urgent.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Ain't Them Bodies Saints

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Pierrot le Fou1965

Direct ancestor. Muldoon and Ruth are Godard's lovers filtered through the American West and modern melancholy.

Godard's lovers-on-the-run film, half century earlier, sets the visual and narrative template Ain't Them Bodies Saints follows. Chaotic, poetic, painted in bright colors, it's the ancestor of every romantic outlaw story made since. Essential viewing to understand the lineage.

But In French with subtitles. Godard's style is deliberately fractured and self-conscious; it's about cinema as much as it's about the couple. Demands patience and a tolerance for formal experiment.

Badlands1973

Terrence Malick's original lovers-on-the-run film, made decades earlier but in the same poetic register. Young outlaws fleeing across America; gorgeous, elegiac, and haunted by the inevitability of capture and loss.

But Even more visually abstract than Ain't Them Bodies Saints. Plot takes a back seat to atmosphere. Some find it precious rather than moving.

The Ballad of Little Jo1993

A woman disguised as a man in the Old West, surviving on her own terms. Quiet, dignified, and filled with the same love of landscape and character over spectacle. A rediscovered gem about the margins of Western mythology.

But Made on a small budget and has that look. The pacing is contemplative to the point where some viewers find it slow.

A Ghost Story2017

Casey Affleck returns to the elegiac, supernatural register. A meditation on time, loss, and what remains of us. Formally adventurous and devastatingly quiet, it shares the film's willingness to sit with grief.

But Extremely experimental structure and pacing. A sheet ghost sits in a house for much of the runtime. Not a conventional narrative experience.

The Homesman2014

Tommy Lee Jones directing and starring in a revisionist Western about women surviving on the frontier. Brutal, tender, and visually gorgeous. Same Texas-set dusty landscape, same interest in how the West actually broke people.

But Darker and more aggressively political than Ain't Them Bodies Saints. Less romantic, more angry at the systems that destroyed lives.

Meek's Cutoff2011

Kelly Reichardt's Western about pioneers lost in the wilderness, shot on 16mm. Glacially paced, visually austere, and hypnotic. For viewers who want cinema that trusts silence and landscape to do the emotional work.

But This is slow cinema in its purest form. No plot fireworks, minimal dialogue. If you need conventional storytelling momentum, you'll find it frustrating.

Killer of Sheep1978

Both reject conventional storytelling to capture the interior texture of lives lived on society's margins. Both trust cinematography and silence over exposition.

Charles Burnett's experimental masterpiece about Black working-class life in LA, shot in gorgeous black-and-white on 16mm. No conventional plot—instead, a series of scenes capturing the texture of a man's life and exhaustion. Visually and emotionally aligned with what Ain't Them Bodies Saints attempts: cinema as mood and atmosphere.

But Extremely challenging. Narrative structure is deliberately fragmented. Long stretches without dialogue. Many viewers find it difficult rather than rewarding on first encounter.

3-Iron2004

Both use visual poetry and stillness to explore how two people create meaning and dignity in desolate circumstances. Both end in erasure.

A South Korean film about a homeless man and a trapped housewife who form a wordless bond, communicating through gesture and shared transgression. Nearly silent, visually precise, and heartbreaking. Similar architecture to Ain't Them Bodies Saints—two people finding connection in emptiness, pursuing it despite inevitability—but rendered in an entirely different cultural language.

But Subtitled. Almost entirely without dialogue. The pacing is meditative and the narrative oblique. The film's gender politics may unsettle viewers unfamiliar with Ki-duk Kim's work.