Kevin Costner as John Dutton poses with a horse in the first episode of Yellowstone.Photo via Paramount Network
A younger audience listened Yellowstone would definitely be interested in visiting again Kevin Costnerand work in the past as an image of the Western genre. While the main demographic of Taylor Sheridanmagnum opus may be aware of Costner’s legacy, others should know that his masterpiece was added to the domestic library of a new streaming platform this October. That film was released at a time when Westerns were thought to have become unfashionable, but defied the odds to emerge as a box office hit and an awards season favorite.
The film was released in 1990, paving the way for a handful of other Westerns from that decade that have stood the test of time – Clint Eastwoodand No forgivenessand the cult classes Tombstone and The Quick and the Dead. Costner’s film was facing an uphill climb to get it made, as most studios bowed to his height and gender. It was eventually produced for a reported $22 million, raised by selling international distribution rights. Decades later, Costner embarked on a seemingly ambitious project – a four-part Western saga whose first two installments were partly self-financed.
Collider Exclusive · 8 questions · 2 minutes Who Western Image Are you the most likely? Anonymous · Doc Holliday · Wyatt Earp · Mattie Ross
Choose your name, your gun, your horse and how you spent a night on the town, and we’ll tell you what legend of the Old West you would be. Four images await at the end of this: the stranger who will not give his name, the gambler who would die for a friend, the lawyer who never wanted the badge, and the girl who no one ever spoke of anything.
🚬No Name(Trilogy of Dollars)
🃏Halloween doc(Tombstone)
⭐Wyatt Earp(Tombstone)
🐎Mattie Ross(True Grit)
01
The town is about to learn your name. What do they call you? In the west, what people say to you is already half of the character.
02
What are you carrying? Everything out here is character, right down to what sits on your hip.
03
What are you riding? The hero and the horse is one of the oldest relationships in cinema.
04
You have one evening in town. How will it go? The saloon is where these movies quietly tell you who someone really is.
05
A stranger offers you money for a job that looks like trouble. Someone always turns up with a full wallet and a bad idea.
06
Someone is waiting for you on the street. What does the town see? Two, an empty road, and everyone else watching from behind the shutters.
07
What’s the one thing you don’t do out here? The code is about the only thing west of the river that really holds.
08
The work is done. Where does the story leave you? Eight questions in, this is the one that will decide your profile.
The dust has settled You have the Western Image…
Four images and four completely different ways of walking into trouble. Here’s the one you’d have out there, why it’s relevant, and how much it could cost you.
The Dollars Trilogy · 1964–1966
The Man With No Name
You’ve never defined yourself and you never needed to, because people quickly figure out that you’re the most capable person in the room without you having to mention it.
Eastwood built the character out of everything he refused to do, removing the backstory, the speeches and all the confidence so that only the ability was left.
You keep your own counsel, and while other people sometimes find that inconvenient, you’ve never really felt the need to fix it for them.
The Dollars movies work because he really exists for himself until the moment he doesn’t, and he doesn’t explain that part either.
You would be gone before anyone had a chance to thank you.
Doc Holliday · Tombstone · 1993
Halloween doc
You are the funniest person in most rooms and the most loyal person in all of them, and you would be very upset if someone suggested that those two things were in any kind of tension.
Doc has no real reason to be in this fight beyond his friend, which is the only reason he ever needed anything.
You lead with wit, and it does a very effective job of hiding how seriously you take the handful of people you care about.
Val Kilmer’s performance is the most quoted in the entire genre as the jokes get sharper as the situation worsens.
You would spend everything you had on this and still say it was a good week.
Wyatt Earp · Tombstone · 1993
Wyatt Earp
You never wanted this job, and you took it anyway because the alternative was standing there watching someone who wasn’t so careful doing it badly, and that’s the most Western reason there’s ever been.
Earp is the reluctant authority figure, a man who came to town specifically to be left alone and somehow ends up being responsible for everything.
You are protective by instinct, so when something goes wrong your first thought is who is exposed rather than who is to blame.
These films understand that keeping order costs much more than breaking it, and that the person who keeps the line is almost never thanked.
You would do the whole thing over again, and you would complain about it all the time.
Mattie Ross · True Grit · 1969 & 2010
Mattie Ross
No one ever talked you into something you had already decided was right, and a long line of adults have found that out the hard way.
Mattie is the most persistent character in the Western canon and she manages it through argument, paperwork and flat refusal rather than quick draw.
You have no patience for being bossed around, so you negotiate, check the details and show up exactly when you said you would.
True Grit is the rare western where the moral center is the youngest person on screen and all the adults around her have to catch up.
You get what you come for, and the film is honest about what that takes out of you.
Epic Western starring Kevin Costner influenced several Blockbusters
But we are talking about it Dances with Wolveswhich emerged as the highest-grossing independent film of all time at the time, with a lifetime haul of $424 million worldwide. The film also won the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director. It now holds an 87% “Certified Fresh” score on aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus reads, “Dances with Wolves suffers from a simplistic view of the culture it tries to honor, but the end result is still a moving West and its noble intentions are often matched by its greatness.” The film follows a documentary template that was also used by The Last Samurai and Avataralthough some critics argue that it embodies the “white savior” trope. Dances with Wolves added to the Prime Video library this month. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
