Film

Slow West

Name: Slow West
Genre: Western, Drama, Adventure, Romance, Thriller
Released: 2015
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Ben Mendelsohn, Caren Pistorius, Rory McCann

Western

A Scottish teenager and a taciturn gunslinger traverse the 1870s frontier in search of a lost love. Slow West is visually sumptuous and morally complicated—a revisionist western that treats violence as consequence rather than spectacle. It's for anyone who loved the idea of the frontier but suspects the myth is rotten at its core.

TMDb rating

3.3

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love spare, sardonic Westerns where a wry tone sits beside sudden brutality, and where a young romantic's naivety is the real engine of the story.

Skip it if you need plot momentum and steady action, because much of the running time is spent drifting across empty landscape with long pauses between words.

What it asks of you: Short at 84 minutes but unhurried, it wants long silences tolerated and dry, deadpan humour accepted in the middle of grim scenes.

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

If you liked this

Hell or High Water2016

A modern western about desperation and theft that moves like a thriller. Bridges the gap between old-west morality and contemporary crime drama with real momentum and perfect casting.

But It's more conventional than Slow West—less interested in myth-making, more interested in plot. If you want poetic ambiguity, this delivers neat answers.

The Ballad of Little Jo1993

A woman dresses as a man to survive the frontier, and the film takes her choice seriously rather than making it a gimmick. Quietly radical, beautifully shot, unflinching about what the west demanded.

But It moves slowly and refuses easy sentiment. The ending is devastating in a way that some viewers find bleak rather than moving.

Meek's Cutoff2011

A wagon train gets lost in the desert and paranoia festers. Kelly Reichardt makes the landscape as much a character as the pioneers. Tension builds from dialogue and doubt, not action.

But Very deliberately paced. If you want resolution or traditional narrative, you'll be frustrated. The ending refuses to explain itself.

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri2017

Both feature morally ambiguous protagonists pursuing righteous goals that unravel. Both distrust simple heroism and ask what justice actually costs.

A woman rents billboards to shame the police about her daughter's unsolved murder. Like Slow West, it's a story about moral certainty crumbling—everyone believes they're right, and nearly everyone is partially wrong. Both films punish good intentions.

But It's a character piece masquerading as a revenge thriller. The tone shifts constantly. Some find it moving; others find it manipulative and muddled.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri poster

Johnny Guitar1954

Joan Crawford runs a saloon in the old west and faces down a lynch mob led by another woman. Strange, operatic, and genuinely weird—it rewrites every western convention with style.

But It's campy in a way that reads as unintentionally funny to modern audiences. The dialogue is arch and the tone lurches between genres.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford2007

A portrait of obsession and failure told with novelistic depth. Andrew Dominik examines the mythology of the outlaw through the eyes of a desperate man seeking connection with a legend.

But It's three hours of baroque cinematography and measured dialogue. If you want action or traditional drama, the pacing will feel glacial.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford poster

Hostiles2017

Christian Bale escorts a Cheyenne family across hostile territory in 1892. A western about the military's complicity in genocide, told with unflinching brutality and real humanity.

But Heavy, morally urgent, and difficult to watch. The violence isn't stylized; it's meant to hurt. Not cathartic entertainment.

True Grit2010

The Coen Brothers remake is sharper and meaner than the original—a revenge story with a girl who refuses to be a damsel. Tight, witty, and genuinely surprising.

But It's almost too clever. The artificiality of the dialogue and the darkness of the humor won't appeal to anyone wanting earnestness or realism.

Deadwood2004

Gold prospectors and con artists build a town without law. Profane, morally murky, obsessed with language and power. If you liked Slow West's willingness to show capitalism as frontier ideology, this goes deeper.

But Three seasons only (plus a recent film). It ends without closure. Also, the dialogue is so thick with profanity that it can feel like a tic rather than authenticity.

The Harder They Fall2021

A stylish, revisionist western centered on Black gunfighters erased from history. It's beautiful, angry, and fun—a corrective myth told with energy and swagger.

But It knows it's a western movie about westerns. The self-awareness and visual flourishes might feel too contemporary or costume-y if you wanted grit over style.

The Revenant2015

Both compress the western into myth—Slow West through artifice and style, The Revenant through physicality and survival. Both are more interested in landscape as character than in plot.

A man hunted across impossible terrain for survival and revenge. Iñárritu films it as physical ordeal—brutal, gorgeous, and almost wordless. A frontier film told through body and landscape rather than dialogue or psychology.

But The plot is thin; it's an endurance test masquerading as narrative. Visually it's stunning, but some find that not enough to carry two and a half hours of suffering.