Film

Ebenezer

Other titles called Ebenezer: the film coming in 2026.

A Wild West reimagining of Dickens' Christmas Carol, with Jack Palance as a ruthless frontier land baron and gunfighter visited by three spirits. It's a sincere attempt to transplant Victorian moralizing into saloons and deserts, treating the material straight rather than winking at the absurdity. For viewers who enjoy genre remixes and don't mind earnest melodrama.

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Scrooged1988

Bill Murray as a ruthless TV executive getting his Christmas haunting on Christmas Eve. Funny, smart, genuinely touching, and it understands that retelling Dickens works best when you let the new setting matter.

But The tonal whiplash between comedy and genuine darkness might feel uneven. Some of the 80s references have dated.

Scrooged poster

The Man Who Invented Christmas2017

A warm, witty film about Dickens writing A Christmas Carol itself. Ryan Reynolds and Christopher Plummer shine, and it captures why these stories matter without ever being sappy about it.

But It's more interested in Dickens' process than plot momentum, so it meanders. If you want conflict and drama, you'll be frustrated.

The Man Who Invented Christmas poster

True Grit2010

The Coen Brothers' Western masterpiece. Precise, moral, darkly funny, and genuinely moving. If you want to see what a rigorous Western can do, this is essential viewing.

But It's slow and deliberate, with violence that lands hard rather than feels cool. The dialect takes concentration. Nothing about it is easy.

True Grit poster

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Deadwood2004

Both attempt to marry Western setting with moral fables—one biblical, one Dickensian. Both use the frontier as a place to ask serious questions about character and consequence rather than just action.

A Western that's relentlessly intelligent about power, morality, and the birth of civilization. Ian McShane is mesmerizing, the language is Shakespearean profanity, and it interrogates every myth the genre trades in. Utterly gripping.

But The Shakespearean dialogue is thick and takes adjustment. It's also violent and crude in ways that feel deliberate rather than exploitative, but it's still demanding. Some find the pacing glacial.

Deadwood poster
More like this (7)

The Ballad of Little Jo1993

A revisionist Western that interrogates frontier mythology and gender. Suzy Amis is extraordinary, and it reframes the whole genre with intelligence and genuine strangeness.

But It's deliberately unglamorous and melancholic. There are long stretches of quiet reflection rather than incident. Some may find it too slow.

The Ballad of Little Jo poster

Tombstone1993

A big, entertaining Western with charm and excellent supporting performances. It hits that sweet spot of being dramatically solid without taking itself too seriously, and it's genuinely fun.

But The plot is straightforward, and some of the dialogue borders on campy. If you want complexity and nuance, this isn't it.

Tombstone poster

Johnny Guitar1954

Nicholas Ray's strange, queasy Western that defies easy categorization. It's genuinely bizarre—a gunfight between women, a woman as the moral center, eerie and beautiful cinematography. Completely singular.

But It's genuinely strange in ways that can feel alienating. The pacing is odd, and there's no clear good guy. It demands patience and an appetite for the unconventional.

Johnny Guitar poster

The Mule2018

Clint Eastwood plays a quiet, aging man caught in circumstances beyond his control. It's elegiac and funny, with one of Eastwood's best performances, and asks real questions about regret and consequence.

But The plot is thin and the pacing deliberately slack. It's more interested in character and mood than momentum, which can feel frustrating.

The Mule poster

Bad Girls1994

A Western built around female friendship and agency, with excellent production design and genuinely entertaining action. It's not trying to be profound, just a solid, fun adventure.

But The script is uneven and the plot sometimes feels thin. It's forgettable in the best and worst ways—entertaining while watching, barely remembered after.

Bad Girls poster

O. Henry's Full House1952

Both are formal remixes of Dickens' structural DNA—his love of multiple perspectives, his belief that small moments can contain moral weight, his faith in redemption through recognition of human connection.

Five interconnected short stories of New York life, each one tightly constructed and emotionally precise. Like Dickens' work itself, it's fundamentally about ordinary people's dignity and grace. Stunning ensemble work.

But It's episodic, so there's no sustained narrative drive. It requires patience and genuine interest in character over plot. Period filmmaking can feel dated to modern eyes.

O. Henry's Full House poster

Unforgiven1992

The deepest connection: both believe in redemption as a serious possibility, but Unforgiven asks the hard question Dickens sidestepped—whether some men are too far gone, whether transformation is always possible or sometimes it's too late.

Eastwood's masterpiece, a Western that disassembles the entire genre's mythology about heroism, violence, and redemption. It's beautiful and devastating, asking whether a man can escape his nature. Singular work of art.

But It's bleak, slow, and offers no comfort. There's no redemptive arc or moral clarity. If you want the Western to reaffirm traditional values, this will horrify you.

Unforgiven poster

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A Christmas Carol