01
The Proposition
Why this pick
Its brutal colonial frontier, dreamlike violence, and mournful moral atmosphere offer the same sense of a Western world already poisoned beyond redemption.
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
MOVIE1995 2h 15m USA
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Movies like
Dead Man
DramaFantasyWestern
CINEHUNCH / THE NEXT FRAME
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
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02
El Topo
Why this pick
A surreal, ritualistic acid Western whose episodic journey and symbolic encounters make a strong match for Dead Man’s hallucinatory, death-bound drift.
03
Gerry
Why this pick
Not a Western, but its near-wordless wandering, austere landscapes, and hypnotic sense of mortality resonate with Dead Man’s stripped-down existential journey.
04
The Rover
Why this pick
This modern frontier odyssey shares Dead Man’s grimly comic detachment, damaged wanderers, sparse violence, and desolate feeling of moving through a world without moral shelter.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
A little about the film.
William Blake (Johnny Depp), an accountant from Cleveland, Ohio, rides by train to the frontier company town of Machine to take up a promised accounting job in the town's metal works. During the trip, the train Fireman (Crispin Glover) warns Blake against the enterprise. Arriving in town, Blake discovers that the position has already been filled, and he is driven from the workplace at gunpoint by John Dickinson, the ferocious owner of the company. Jobless and without money or prospects, Blake meets Thel Russell (Mili Avital), a former prostitute who sells paper flowers. He lets her take him home. Thel's ex-boyfriend Charlie surprises them in bed and shoots at Blake, accidentally killing Thel when she tries to shield Blake with her body. The bullet passes through Thel and wounds Blake, but he is able to kill Charlie using Thel's gun before dazedly climbing out the window and fleeing the town on Charlie's horse. Company-owner Dickinson is Charlie's father, and he hires three legendary frontier killers, Cole Wilson, Conway Twill, and Johnny "The Kid" Pickett to bring Blake back 'dead or alive'.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
The people who bring it to life.
Johnny Depp
William Blake
Lance Henriksen
Cole Wilson
Gabriel Byrne
Charlie Dickinson
Michelle Thrush
Nobody's Girlfriend
Gibby Haynes
Man with Gun in Alley
Gary Farmer
Nobody
Crispin Glover
Train Fireman
Michael Wincott
Conway Twill