Ember's analysis
- Pacing
- Measured
- Intensity
- Strong
- Complexity
- Easy to follow
- Violence
- Brutal
- bleak
- foreboding
- harrowing
- western movie night
- serious film night
What critics said
Critics broadly found the adaptation visually imposing and committed to its bleak frontier atmosphere, while considering its pacing and character development uneven.
What sets it apart
May contain story progression spoilers
The buffalo-hunting expedition is organized around profit and hides, while the wilderness and hunters are progressively consumed by the enterprise.
Will Andrews leaves Harvard and encounters a wilderness economy that dismantles his assumptions about purpose, masculinity, and progress.
The Colorado landscape, snowstorm, and buffalo grounds are presented as imposing spaces that overwhelm the hunting party.
The journey places Will's life and sanity at risk as hunger, violence, isolation, and the expedition's obsessive purpose intensify.
Films like Butcher's Crossing, and why
The Revenant
shared american west setting, existential drama, brutal wilderness survival, and morally corrosive ambition
Dead Man
shared revisionist western atmosphere, psychological disintegration, and stark frontier violence
The Proposition
shared western form, bleak survival themes, and an outsider confronted by a hostile landscape
The Homesman
shared literary western sensibility, masculine violence, and fatalistic frontier drama
Movie Details
- Director
- Gabe Polsky
- Release Date
- 2023-02-03
- Runtime
- 105 min
- Rating
- 5.9 / 10 (224)
Cast
- Nicolas Cage
- Fred Hechinger
- Jeremy Bobb
- Paul Raci
- Xander Berkeley
- Rachel Keller
- Amber Rose Mason
- Zuzu Weingart
- Jesse Cilio
- Gabriel Clark
Where to watch in United States
- Streaming
- Hulu
- Rent
- Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Fandango At Home, Spectrum On Demand, Plex
- Buy
- Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Fandango At Home
Streaming options come from TMDB and change over time.
Common questions
- What is Butcher's Crossing about?
- An idealistic college dropout enters the Colorado wilderness with buffalo hunters and discovers that frontier ambition can consume body, mind, and landscape.
- What is Butcher's Crossing like to watch?
- Ember's analysis rates the pacing of Butcher's Crossing as measured, its intensity as strong and its storytelling as easy to follow.
- Is Butcher's Crossing violent?
- Yes. Ember rates the violence in Butcher's Crossing as brutal.
- What did critics think of Butcher's Crossing?
- Critics broadly found the adaptation visually imposing and committed to its bleak frontier atmosphere, while considering its pacing and character development uneven.
- Which films are like Butcher's Crossing?
- Films with a similar feel include The Revenant, Dead Man, The Proposition, and The Homesman.
- How long is Butcher's Crossing?
- Butcher's Crossing runs 105 minutes.
- Where can I watch Butcher's Crossing?
- In United States, Butcher's Crossing streams on Hulu.
