Television series

The English

A six-part Western that trades galloping heroics for moral reckoning. Emily Blunt's Englishwoman arrives in 1890 America hunting vengeance; Chaske Spencer's Pawnee scout becomes her unlikely partner. It's deliberately paced, visually austere, interested in how violence echoes across generations and landscapes. For viewers who want their Westerns to sit with grief.

TVMaze rating3.9

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want a slow-burning revenge western that takes its frontier myths apart, with long, quiet landscapes and two leads who circle each other warily rather than trading easy heroics.

Skip it if you need brisk plotting and a clean sense of who to root for, since its violence is unflinching and its pace deliberately unhurried.

What it asks of you: Six episodes of around 53 minutes each, it rewards patience and close attention, staying with silences and grim frontier detail rather than racing from one set piece to the next.

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

If you liked this

Godless2017

A woman-run town in the Nevada desert becomes the focus of a revenge cycle. Western aesthetics, women at the centre, violence that has consequences beyond the moment. Shorter and tighter than you'd expect.

But It asks a lot of you tonally—swings between beauty and brutality without much warning. Some will find that jarring.

Godless poster

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford2007

A Western that's actually a character study of obsession and myth-making. Brad Pitt as Jesse is terrifying and human. Like The English, it understands that revenge stories are really about the people doing the chasing.

But Glacially slow. The last hour is mostly waiting for something you know is coming. If you want action, look elsewhere.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford poster

MINDHUNTER2017

Two FBI agents pioneering behavioural analysis, meeting serial killers and themselves. Methodical, unsettling, about the cost of looking into darkness. Shares The English's interest in damaged people doing necessary work.

But Cancelled after two seasons on a cliffhanger. You'll feel robbed. And it moves like molasses by design.

MINDHUNTER poster

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Power of the Dog2021

Both use the Western form to interrogate masculinity and the performance of cruelty. Both believe the most dangerous people smile.

A New Zealand director makes a Western where power lives in whispers and gestures, not gunfire. Benedict Cumberbatch's rancher hides cruelty inside civility. Like The English, it trusts you to understand violence by what it doesn't show you.

But Deliberately anti-climactic. If you're waiting for payoff, you'll be disappointed—the film's about the waiting itself.

The Power of the Dog poster
More like this (6)

Wind River2017

A Shoshone tracker and an FBI agent investigate murders on a reservation. Grief, institutional failure, and a landscape that's been weaponised against its people. Both it and The English ask who America's violence is really for.

But Relentlessly bleak. There's no catharsis, no neat resolution. The film believes that some things can't be fixed, only witnessed.

Wind River poster

Deadwood2004

A gold-rush camp becoming a town, full of people who are terrible and compelling in equal measure. Vulgar, smart, interested in how civilisation gets built on top of graves. More garrulous than The English but the same moral DNA.

But The dialogue is deliberately obscene and archaic—it's a choice that works or it doesn't, and if it doesn't, three seasons feels very long.

Deadwood poster

Slow West2015

A Scottish boy and a frontier drifter cross 1870s Colorado. Visually stunning, morally complicated, surprisingly funny. It's a Western that doesn't believe in the West's mythology and neither does The English.

But Some find the tone inconsistent—it won't let you settle into any single feeling. The ending divides people.

Slow West poster

Killers of the Flower Moon2023

Scorsese's three-and-a-half hour meditation on American theft and Indigenous genocide in 1920s Oklahoma. Obsession, moral corruption, a landscape haunted by what was taken. It's heavy, but it's asking the same questions as The English.

But Long enough to feel it. Scorsese doesn't look away from the ugliness, and neither should you. Not easy viewing.

Killers of the Flower Moon poster

The Sisters Brothers2018

Two assassin brothers pursue a gold prospector through 1850s wilderness. Funny, melancholic, built on male intimacy and inevitable failure. A Western that's both entertaining and serious about its moral weight.

But The tone is unusual for a Western—droll and sad at once. If you want clear heroes or straightforward violence, you'll bounce off it.

The Sisters Brothers poster

Jesus, the Daughter of God2013

Both centre women moving through hostile landscapes. Both understand that some stories need to be told in symbols and images rather than words. Both are interested in transformation through suffering.

A Jodorowsky surrealist film about a woman's spiritual and physical journey through a broken Mexico. Visually extraordinary, genuinely strange, operating in myth rather than realism. It asks what vengeance and redemption look like when you strip away narrative logic.

But Wilfully obscure. If you need plot to follow, you'll lose yourself immediately. Not a film but an experience, and experiences are divisive.

Jesus, the Daughter of God poster

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Recommended by

Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, The Time Traveler's Wife, Our Girl, Sarah, Plain and Tall