The last time the Coen Brothers made a western, they ended up with 10 Oscar nominations for True Grit.
Returning to the genre with a six-part anthology film that looks more ambitious than anything else they’ve made in years, The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs looks set to be a pretty big event when it premieres on Netflix on November 17.
Starting life as a TV series, the project became an anthology film when it was entered for competition at the Venice Film Festival – picking up great reviews and winning the Coens a best screenplay prize. The film is the brother’s first since 2016’s Hail, Caesar! and the last before thier rumoured Dark Web project with Dennis Lehane.
The film tells six different western stories and stars everyone from Tim Blake Nelson, Zoe Kazan and James Franco to Liam Neeson, Brendan Gleeson and Tom Waits.
Franco plays a thief who’s waiting to be hanged, Neeson is the director of a theatrical touring show, Kazan is out on the Oregon trail and Nelson is the film’s titular hero – a big-hatted singing cowboy with a violent streak.
As you’d expect with a Coen movie, it looks gorgeous – although regular DOP Roger Deakins has been swapped out for Inside Llewyn Davis’ Bruno Delbonnel. Either way, it looks like the sort of Netflix Original that’s worth getting a bigger TV to watch it on.