Film

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Name: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Genre: Western, Crime, Drama
Released: 1969
Cast: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katharine Ross, Strother Martin, Henry Jones

A wanted outlaw and his sharpshooting best friend talk their way out of trouble, right up until the country runs out of room for men like them. It's less a shoot-'em-up than a hangout movie with guns — quippy, melancholy, gorgeous to look at, and one of the great screen friendships. For anyone who wants a western that's funny first and elegiac second.

TMDb rating

7.6

If you liked this

The Sting1973

Newman and Redford reunite for a con-artist caper with the same easy chemistry, ragtime score standing in for Bacharach, and a plot built entirely on charm and misdirection.

But No western at all — it's Depression-era Chicago, and the mood is puzzle-box slick rather than dusty and doomed.

Thelma & Louise1991

Another fugitive pair driving toward a horizon that quietly narrows, mixing road-trip comedy with real fury, and ending on an image you won't shake off.

But Angrier and more political than Butch Cassidy — this is rage dressed as a getaway, not nostalgia.

Bonnie and Clyde1967

The template this film is riffing on: young, photogenic outlaws, media-made celebrities, romanticized right up until the violence turns real and ugly.

But Far more brutal in its final stretch — the glamour curdles hard, with none of Butch Cassidy's soft landing of humor.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Gun Crazy1950

This is the ancestor: the low-budget noir that invented the 'charismatic couple, one long crime spree, no way out' shape that Butch Cassidy and Bonnie and Clyde both inherited.

A scrappy black-and-white noir about a besotted couple robbing their way across America, shot with a nervy, handheld urgency that predicts every doomed-outlaw-duo film that followed.

But Cheap, fast, and rough around the edges — a B-picture, not a polished studio classic, and it looks it.

The Wild Bunch1969

Released the same year, telling the same story — aging outlaws outrun by a modernizing world — but drenched in blood instead of banter.

But Sam Peckinpah's slow-motion carnage is the opposite of Butch Cassidy's light touch; this one wants to hurt you.

Unforgiven1992

Clint Eastwood dismantles the western myth Butch Cassidy is gently mocking, asking what actually happens to men who've lived by the gun once the legend fades.

But Grim and unglamorous by design — there's no jaunty bicycle scene here, only consequence.

True Grit2010

The Coen brothers' western has the same appetite for quotable, deadpan dialogue and a genuine affection for its stubborn, doomed-adjacent characters.

But Told from a fourteen-year-old girl's point of view, so the buddy-outlaw dynamic is swapped for something colder and more procedural.

Cool Hand Luke1967

Paul Newman at his most magnetic, playing another man who won't bend to a system that's already decided how his story ends.

But Trades the open range for a prison chain gang — claustrophobic where Butch Cassidy is expansive and sunny.

The Outlaw Josey Wales1976no page yet

A fugitive gunslinger builds an unlikely found family while riding one step ahead of pursuers, with the same elegiac sense that the frontier is closing.

But Eastwood plays it stony and vengeful rather than wisecracking — the humor Butch Cassidy runs on is mostly absent.

No Country for Old Men2007

A modern-day western about men who've outlived the world that made sense of them, with the same bone-deep sense of an era ending.

But There's no charm offensive here — it's bleak, violent, and offers none of the buddy-movie warmth you came for.

Cowboy Bebop1998

Same engine, different costume: two loose, charming outlaws who know their world is ending, wrapped in music and dialogue doing as much work as the plot.

A jazz-scored anime about bounty hunters drifting through space with nothing but banter and a shared past holding them together, funny and melancholy in exactly the same breath.

But It's animated, episodic, and set among spaceships — a big ask if you came here strictly for horses and dust.

Logan Lucky2017

Steven Soderbergh borrows the exact register Butch Cassidy perfected — lovable crooks, witty and doomed to lose, tragedy kept just offscreen by the jokes.

A good-natured heist comedy about broke, likeable outsiders pulling one last job against a system that's already written them off, with real affection under the jokes.

But Contemporary, Southern, and comic rather than elegiac — there's no mythic weight, just a shaggy, warm-hearted caper.