While Western movies were once the backbone of Hollywood, the genre has seen some great movies flop disastrously in the last few decades. The Western is not what it used to be. Some recent efforts in the genre have attempted to revive Western tropes, but this endeavor has been met with mixed results. For every critically acclaimed Western like Netflix’s 2021 outing The Harder They Fall, there is a high-profile flop like 2022’s Cry Macho. For every sleeper hit like 2012’s Django Unchained, there is a historic financial catastrophe like 2013’s The Lone Ranger.
However, the Western isn’t alone in this fate. There are a lot of great horror movies that bombed at the box office and plenty of stellar sci-fi efforts have faced the same fate. However, both horror movies and sci-fi movies are popular enough to weather a few flops. In contrast, despite occasional hits like The Revenant and The Power of the Dog, the critical consensus is that the Western is a dead institution at the box office. Whether it was replaced by superhero movies or children’s films, the Western hasn’t been reliably restored to its former glory in decades, as proven by the many great Western movies that bombed at the box office.
15 The Magnificent Seven (2016)
2016’s re-imagining of the ‘60s classic The Magnificent Seven brought a great cast and a sharp script to the table. Starring Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke, and Chris Pratt, The Magnificent Seven’s screenplay received an update from True Detective scribe Nic Pizzolatto and killer direction from action genre veteran Antoine Fuqua. Despite all these selling points, The Magnificent Seven was unable to fix the Western’s lengthy losing battle at the box office. 2016's remake The Magnificent Seven earned only $162 million on a budget of $107 million, and viewers mostly missed out on this smart, thoughtful update of an earlier classic.
Available To Stream On Prime Video
14 3:10 To Yuma (2007)
“Bale vs Crowe” should have been enough to sell audiences on 2007’s Western remake 3:10 To Yuma. The tense tale of a down-on-his-luck rancher transporting a hardened criminal for the sake of a meager reward, 3:10 To Yuma is as grim and gritty as the Elmore Leonard short story it is based on. Harsher than the 1957 adaptation of the same name, 3:10 To Yuma proved director James Mangold’s action chops before he honed them with 2017’s quasi-Western Logan. Unfortunately, 3:10 To Yuma didn’t resonate with audiences, earning only $71 million on a budget of $55 million.
13 Jane Got A Gun
Few viewers would have guessed that, before the success of Netflix’s teen horror comedy The Babysitter, screenwriter Brian Duffield working on a surprisingly straightforward, self-serious Western. However, Jane Got A Gun might have been a campier, more self-aware affair earlier in the movie’s messy production. The story of Natalie Portman’s resilient heroine and her troubled ex-fiance holding down a besieged homestead, Jane Got A Gun lurches between dark Western drama and crowd-pleasing thrills unevenly. However, Jane Got A Gun is still a strong, intense Western thriller, and didn’t deserve to lose over $20 million at the box office despite a relatively modest $25 million budget.
Available To Stream On Netflix
12 The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
While 2005's The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada wasn’t a complete financial disaster upon release, the Western did earn less than its $15 million budget. This was a shame, as director Tommy Lee Jones’ lyrical Western is a poignant, intense redemption story. A slow-burn story, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada sees Jones star as a taciturn rancher who forces a Border Patrol officer to exhume the corpse of a man he murdered. The man, undocumented laborer Melquiades Estrada, was the rancher’s best friend, and he needs a proper burial. This leads to an odyssey inspired by Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying that remains urgent, moving, and powerful almost two decades after its release.
11 The Proposition
Written by the legendary musician Nick Cave (who also scripted a scrapped version of Gladiator 2), The Proposition is a relentlessly bleak outback Western from director John Hillcoat. The titular proposition refers to an impossibly cruel quandary that the movie’s outlaw antihero is offered. He is given nine days to hunt down and kill his older brother (an even more lethal outlaw) or the law will execute his younger brother Mikey. As close as filmmakers have come to adapting Cormac McCarthy’s infamous Blood Meridian, The Proposition received rave reviews. However, even Roger Ebert dubbing this sunburnt nightmare “pitiless and uncompromising” could not stop The Proposition from underperforming in its limited US release.
Available To Stream On Apple TV
10 Bone Tomahawk
2015’s horror Western Bone Tomahawk has an impressive cast including Kurt Russell, David Arquette, and Patrick Wilson. Bone Tomahawk tells the simple, tense story of a group of mismatched cowboys saving hostages from cannibalistic cave dwellers. Like director Craig S Zahler’s later Dragged Across Concrete, Bone Tomahawk earned criticism for its questionable politics. However, the brutal horror Western’s effective scares and intense action are undeniably effective, despite the subsequent actions of Bone Tomahawk’s creators casting a long shadow over the movie’s reputation.
Available To Stream On Netflix
9 The True History of the Kelly Gang
2019’s The True History of the Kelly Gang brought the legendary tale of Australian folk hero Ned Kelly to vivid life with swagger to spare. An ensemble cast including Charlie Hunman, George McKay, Nicholas Hoult, and Russell Crowe ensured that The True History of the Kelly Gang was a star-studded affair, and director Justin Kurzel brought style and pathos to the outlaw’s iconic story. However, this did not stop The True History of the Kelly Gang from flopping disastrously at the box office, earning under $500,000. Another nail in the coffin of the genre, The True History of the Kelly Gang proved Western movies have never been less profitable.
Available To Stream On Prime Video
8 Heaven’s Gate
Released in 1980, Heaven’s Gate is infamously seen as the movie that single-handedly ended New Hollywood’s reign of complete creative freedom. To be fair to mercurial director Michael Cimino, Heaven’s Gate is nowhere near the failure that it was seen as upon release. Branded one of the “worst films ever made,” Heaven’s Gate earned less than $4 million on a budget of $40 million. Despite this, Heaven’s Gate’s story of a dispute between barons and immigrants is much better than its ignominious reputation suggests. Some retrospective reviews have even branded Heaven’s Gate a forgotten classic.
7 The Homesman
Set in 1854, The Homesman tells the tale of a spinster teaming up with a claim jumper to shepherd three mentally ill women to safety. ittedly, this premise might have been too bleak to draw in casual viewers, but The Homesman’s financial failure is still striking. Directed by Tommy Lee Jones, The Homesman stars an ensemble cast including Jones, Hilary Swank, Hailee Steinfeld, Jesse Plemons, and even Meryl Streep. Despite this lineup, The Homesman earned only $8 million on a budget of $16 million. A stellar watch, The Homesman is more dispiriting proof that Westerns of all stripes struggle at the box office.
Available To Stream On Netflix
6 Slow West
2015’s Slow West sees Michael Fassbender and Kodi Smith-Mhee star in an offbeat, slow-burn Western story. Released to almost no reaction, Slow West earned a handful of positive reviews before seemingly vanishing from the public consciousness entirely. Despite this fate, Slow West is a compelling, unusual Western that proved future Power of the Dog star Smith-Mhee had potential as an unlikely genre icon long before that hit arrived at cinema screens.
