Film

Bone Tomahawk

Name: Bone Tomahawk
Genre: Drama, Horror, Western
Released: 2015
Cast: Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Richard Jenkins, Matthew Fox, Lili Simmons

A western sheriff leads a small posse into a frontier wilderness to rescue two captives taken by an ancient cannibalistic tribe. Bone Tomahawk is deliberate, ugly, and weirdly funny—a slow-burn horror film that trusts its premise with disturbing conviction. It's for people who love movies that commit fully to their own peculiar vision, even when that vision is deeply wrong.

TMDb rating

3.5

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love unhurried westerns full of dry talk and weathered faces, and you don't mind a long wait for the dread to gather before it tips into horror.

Skip it if you want brisk pacing or light relief, since the opening stretch is patient and talky and the violence, when it arrives, is graphic and hard to shake off.

What it asks of you: Over two hours of slow travel and quiet talk, the mood staying grim and unsentimental, with bursts of violence that arrive without warning.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Hateful Eight2015

Tarantino's wintry western pulses with claustrophobic dread and character work. If you loved Bone Tomahawk's commitment to tension over spectacle, this delivers the same patient, dialogue-driven unease in a different key.

But It's nearly three hours of talk interrupted by sudden violence. Some find Tarantino's style more affected than earned, especially in a period setting.

Hell or High Water2016

A lean crime western with the same quiet intensity and respect for its landscape. Both films understand that the frontier is a place of real consequence, not backdrop, and treat their characters with unflinching honesty.

But More conventional in structure and mood—if you want Bone Tomahawk's weirdness and horror, this won't scratch that itch.

Brawl in Cell Block 992017

Another S. Craig Zahler film with the same deadpan commitment to brutality and character. If you trust the director's vision in Bone Tomahawk, his other work proves it's no fluke—he's making westerns and thrillers nobody else would attempt.

But Even slower and more deliberately uncomfortable. The violence is graphic and prolonged. Zahler's style requires patience that doesn't pay off for everyone.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Bone Tomahawk

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Raw2017

Both treat cannibalism as something that can happen, that makes a kind of sense, that reveals character rather than just punishing it.

A French film about a vegetarian art student who develops a taste for raw flesh. Like Bone Tomahawk, it uses cannibalism and transgression as a lens for examining what we'll do under pressure and what we become when we surrender to appetite. Both are unflinching and weirdly sensual.

But It's framed through the perspective of a young woman at a boarding school, not an action western. The horror is internal and sexual, not tactical. Watching it requires a very different kind of patience.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford2007

A western that moves like honey, full of moral ambiguity and long silences. Both films refuse to sentimentalize the frontier or make violence easy to watch. The psychological penetration is remarkable.

But It's introspective to the point of stasis for some viewers. Nearly three hours of men sitting in rooms thinking about their choices.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford poster

Hostiles2017

Christian Bale and Rosamund Pike lead a brutal journey across hostile land. Like Bone Tomahawk, it takes the western form seriously and uses the journey itself as moral and physical trial.

But The pacing is glacial in places. It wrestles with themes of genocide and trauma in ways that can feel heavy-handed.

There Will Be Blood2007

Paul Thomas Anderson's epic about greed and corruption in early California. Both films distrust their settings and characters deeply, using landscape and ritual to explore how power corrupts.

But It's more ambitious than focused. The final act divides viewers sharply on whether the vision pays off or collapses.

Appaloosa2008

Ed Harris directed and starred in this quiet character study about two lawmen and the woman who comes between them. It shares Bone Tomahawk's attention to small moments and earned emotional stakes.

But It's fundamentally a love triangle story dressed as a western, which some find slight after a strong setup.

The Revenant2015

Survival and vengeance in the wilderness, rendered with physical precision and stunning scope. Both films use landscape as a character and refuse to make endurance heroic—it's just brutal.

But It's a revenge film at heart, which is a simpler moral proposition than Bone Tomahawk's stranger complications.

Slow West2015

John Maclean's debut is a compact, poetic western about two travelers crossing dangerous country. It has Bone Tomahawk's willingness to move slowly and let dread accumulate.

But It's slight and stylized in ways that can feel precious. The tonal shifts don't always land, and it's less committed to its horrors.

The Ballad of Little Jo1993

Both films see the frontier as a place where the rules of civilization collapse and people become strangers to themselves. Both ask hard questions about who survives and why.

A woman disguises herself as a man to survive the frontier. Where Bone Tomahawk uses the western to interrogate violence and tribalism, this film interrogates gender, belonging, and how identity is performance. Both are revisionist and uncomfortable in ways that feel essential.

But It's much smaller and quieter, built on subtle revelation rather than incident. It doesn't have the plot momentum or visceral punch of Bone Tomahawk.

Starry Eyes2014

Both are small-budget horror films directed by someone with no interest in compromise. Both use their low budgets to force intimacy with violence and transformation. Both trust the audience to sit with discomfort.

A horror film about an actress who makes a Faustian bargain in Los Angeles. It has nothing to do with westerns, but like Bone Tomahawk, it's a slow-burn horror film made by a director with an absolute vision about transgression and corruption. The violence is shocking because it's earned by character, not spectacle.

But It's set in contemporary LA and trades frontier brutality for body horror and sexual degradation. If you want that specific western dread, this is the wrong shape entirely.