Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid

A former friend betrays a legendary outlaw in Sam Peckinpah's final Western. Holed up in Fort Sumner with his gang between cattle rustlings, Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson) ignores the advice of comrade-turned-lawman Pat Garrett (James Coburn) to escape to Mexico, and he winds up in jail in ...more

Sam Peckinpah made several meditations on the death of the Old West, but few were ever as minimalist or challenging as Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Western fans expecting a kinetic buildup to a dramatic showdown between the title characters will be sorely disappointed: instead, Peckinpah and screenwriter Rudolph Wurlitzer go for a meditative approach where the ultimate fate of the characters is never in doubt, only the way they get there. This lateral approach actually makes for an interesting ...more