Film

Hostiles

Name: Hostiles
Genre: Drama, Western, History, Adventure
Released: 2017
Cast: Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike, Wes Studi, Jesse Plemons, Adam Beach

A late-western about an ageing cavalry captain forced to confront his racism while escorting a Cheyenne chief across hostile frontier country. Serious, graceful, and deliberately slow, it's a character study disguised as a journey narrative. For viewers who want moral weight without sanctimony, and who've grown past needing constant plot momentum.

TMDb rating

3.5

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like westerns that weigh landscape and grief as heavily as gunfire, and a lead whose convictions are slowly tested on the road.

Skip it if you want brisk action or a tidy, uplifting arc; this is long, grim and violent, with stretches where very little seems to happen between brutal flashes.

What it asks of you: Settle in for over two hours at a deliberate pace, with long quiet stretches of landscape and dialogue, and expect the violence to arrive suddenly and stay with you.

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

If you liked this

Dances with Wolves1990

The template for the enlightened-soldier western. A Union officer finds meaning and belonging among the Lakota, and Costner's direction is patient enough to let landscape and silence do real work. It earned its Oscars.

But At nearly three and a half hours, it asks for total commitment. Some find the perspective still ultimately a white-centered redemption arc rather than a genuine reckoning.

The Revenant2015

DiCaprio and Hardy in a brutal survival epic across frozen frontier. Like *Hostiles*, it's visually magnificent and philosophically dark—a man tested by landscape, rage, and the question of what justice means in a lawless place.

But Relentlessly grim and violent. The glacial pacing that gives it weight will feel punishing if you want catharsis or resolution.

News of the World2020

Tom Hanks as a traveling news-reader in post-Civil War Texas, drawn into a mission of protection. Quiet, beautifully shot, and fundamentally concerned with how to live decently in a broken world.

But Plot is minimal. If you need clear stakes and forward motion, the meditative rhythms will frustrate you.

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Son2022

Both track a hardened man confronting damage he's caused and cannot undo, using their respective forms to insist that living with guilt is the actual story.

Florian Zeller's film tracks a father (Byrne) and son (Hall) through depression, resentment, and the impossibility of bridging the gap between them. Like *Hostiles*, it refuses easy catharsis and understands that some moral injuries never fully heal. The performances are devastatingly intimate.

But It's deliberately uncomfortable—nothing is resolved. The aesthetic is claustrophobic where *Hostiles* is vast. Viewers seeking any uplift will feel drained.

True Grit2010

The Coen Brothers' western is lean and purposeful—a girl hires a drunk marshal for revenge. It has *Hostiles*' interest in character integrity and moral cost, but moves faster and lets humour breathe alongside the darkness.

But The central role goes to a 14-year-old, and Rooster Cogburn's arc might feel less earned than Blocker's. Some find it colder than it intends.

3:10 to Yuma2007

A rancher escorts a captured outlaw across dangerous country. Tense, philosophically rich, and entirely concerned with the interior lives of men negotiating honour and survival. Russell Crowe is mesmerising as a charming villain.

But Dialogue-heavy and psychologically claustrophobic. The final act divides viewers sharply on whether it earns its choices.

The Power of the Dog2021

A rancher's cruelty masks fragility in 1920s Montana. Campion's control is absolute—every shot, sound, and silence means something. It shares *Hostiles*' fascination with men who've calcified into their damage.

But Deeply unsettling and deliberately obscure about motive. Patience is required; explanation never comes. Some will feel manipulated by its withholding.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford2007

A mythic, melancholic western about worship, betrayal, and the gap between legend and man. Roger Deakins' cinematography and the film's elegiac tone echo *Hostiles*' ambition to say something true about American violence and memory.

But Deliberately paced and introspective rather than action-driven. Some find it glacial; others find the whispered dialogue hard to hear.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford poster

Slow West2015

A Scottish teenager crosses the American frontier chasing a girl. Visually stunning, morally complex, and genuinely surprising in how it subverts western genre expectations. At 84 minutes, it respects your time while delivering real weight.

But The tonal shifts—between beauty and sudden violence—unsettle some viewers. Its brevity means fewer character moments than *Hostiles* allows.

Johnny Guitar1954

Ray's weird fever dream of a western. A woman runs a saloon, a woman loves another woman, and nothing conforms to genre expectation. It's formally strange and thematically about refusing easy moral categories—a ancestor to *Hostiles*' willingness to complicate its icons.

But The gender-swapped logic can read as camp. The film's age means some performances feel artificial by modern standards, and the plot is genuinely peculiar.

A Dark Song2016

Both films use a dangerous journey to excavate regret and the possibility—or impossibility—of redemption. Both trust the audience to sit with uncertainty.

A widow hires an occultist for a supernatural ritual. What unfolds is a two-character study about grief, faith, and whether any process can absolve us. Slow, strange, and unexpectedly profound—it has *Hostiles*' patience with moral complexity and its willingness to let silence matter.

But It's genuinely weird and structurally unconventional. Some viewers will dismiss it as pretentious; others will find the supernatural framework too oblique for the emotional work it's doing.

The Dead Don't Die2019

Both use the western landscape and masculine codes as a stage for meditating on exhaustion, inevitability, and the stories we tell ourselves about purpose and meaning.

Jarmusch's zombie film is a western in disguise: two cops face the end of the world with exhaustion rather than heroics. Deadpan, formally precise, and structurally a conversation about mortality and duty. It shares *Hostiles*' interest in men performing their roles even as meaning drains away.

But It's a comedy-horror hybrid that frustrates genre expectations deliberately. The tone is so flat some find it tedious; the violence is stylised rather than graphic. You have to like Jarmusch's register to survive it.