The shows of Taylor Sheridan dominate the programming on Paramount+, and the streamer just added a classic modern Western with 93% on Rotten Tomatoes that perfectly complements his work -No Country for Old Men. Sheridan’s love for the Western genre should be obvious not only from his roster of streaming shows, includingthe maybe-over smash hitYellowstone, but from his cinematic output as well.
The actor-turned-writer-and-director made his first big breakthroughs with a pair of neo-Westerns, scripting 2016’sHell or High Water, and holding down both writing and directing duties on 2017’sWind River. But it was on the small screen where Sheridan would make his biggest impact. 2018 saw the start of his ongoing run as one of streaming’s most prolific creators, and the first series out of the gate was a modern-day Western.Yellowstonebroke huge in 2018,launching an entire universe of shows later to include the Western-themed1883,1923andLawmen: Bass Reeves.
No Country For Old Men Is Now Streaming On Paramount+
The Coen Brothers’ Thriller Is A Classic Neo-Western
It would not be a stretch to callNo Country for Old Menthe perfect example of the modern-day Western. Set in the 1980s, McCarthy’s book feels haunted by the legacy of the Old West and its violence, and the Coens expertly transfer that feeling over to the movie. Essentially a chase thriller, the film pits Josh Brolin’s noir-style anti-hero against one of movie history’s most memorable villains,the psychopathic Anton Chigurh, played with chilling menace by Oscar-winner Javier Bardem.
No Country for Old MenjoinedCimarron,Dances With WolvesandUnforgivenon the list of Westerns that have won the Oscar for Best Picture.
ThatNo Country for Old MeninfluencedYellowstonecreator Sheridan can plainly be seen through his screenplays forHell or High WaterandSicario, and his script and directing work forWind River.Hell or High Waterin particular feels heavily informed by what the Coen Brothers did with their 2007 Oscar-winner. Sheridan’s originalHell or High Waterscreenplay was nominated for an Oscar, but unlike the Coens’ script for their McCarthy adaptation, it did not win.
No Country For Old Men Is A Harder Take On Westerns, But Still Complements Taylor Sheridan’s Paramount+ Shows
Sheridan’s Shows Offer Their Own View Of How The Past Haunts The Present
No Country for Old Menis uncompromisingly bleak in its outlook on the world, completely laser-focused in its plotting and razor-sharp in its editing. While the Coens’ film seems precision-hewn from the coldest, hardest rock imaginable,the Sheridan streaming shows it now joins on Paramount+ feel roughly-sculpted out of much more malleable and forgiving material.
No Country for Old Menmay indeed take a much harder approach to the neo-Western form than Sheridan’s shows, but the Oscar-winning film still slots in quite comfortably alongside the likes ofYellowstone’s spinoffs. The clash between old ways and new is a major theme in Sheridan’s most famous stories, as it is in the Coens’ movie, where Tommy Lee Jones’ Ed Tom Bell laments the passing away of the world he grew up in, and the moral clarity that came with it.
Hell or High Water
Screenwriter (Oscar-nominated)
97%
88%
87%
90%
83%
76%
1883
89%
77%
1923
95%
53%
79%
93%
78%
63%
ThoughYellowstonespinoff1923is set in the past, qualifying it as a Western in the classic sense, it is concerned with many of the same themes asNo Country for Old Men. Like Brolin’s Llewelyn Moss, the protagonists of1923are hounded by utterly ruthless foes, in a world where the old rules of right-and-wrong no longer seem to apply.
1923’s villains may not be as terrifying as Bardem’s Chigurh, but they give the horror-villain-like antagonist a run for his money in soulless brutality, showing how the powerful use violence to serve their ends, but sometimes fall victim to the very carnage they’ve unleashed.1923’s Whitfield (Timothy Dalton) eventually learns a harsh lesson about one’s actions coming back on them, as doesNo Country’s Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson) when the demonic Chigurh comes to kill his master.
Though he makes soapy streaming shows instead of gritty movies, Sheridan’s brutality sometimes rivals and even surpasses that of the Coen Brothers. This is particularly true for1923, in which the violence inflicted on characters like Teonna Rainwater and Alexandra Dutton becomes too extreme for comfort. While Sheridan can sometimes seem to revel in the punishment he inflicts on his characters, the Coens maintain a certain distance in a film likeNo Country for Old Men, observing the horror instead of relishing it.
Comparing his approach to violence with that of the Coens perhaps gives insight into Sheridan as a writer and director,exposing a sadistically exploitative strain running through his work. Those wishing to study howNo Country for Old Menmay have influenced – or perhaps not influenced – Sheridan’s neo-Western or Western shows can now do so without leaving the confines of Paramount+.
