Nestled among the many, MANY movies recently added to Prime Video is one of the best Westerns of 2023 - Butcher's Crossing.
Based on a 1960 novel of the same name by John Edward Williams (Stoner), the movie is set in the 1870s and follows young Harvard drop-out Will (Fred Hechinger - Gladiator 2, The White Lotus) out in the Colorado wilderness.
There, he joins up with a mysterious frontiersman named Miller (Oscar-winner Nicolas Cage) and his team of buffalo hunters in search of a mythic herd of the animal.
However, the group's journey winds up putting their "life and sanity at risk".
Nicolas Cage in Butcher's Crossing, a new Western streaming on Prime Video
Also featuring amongst its cast Jeremy Bobb (The Outsider), Paul Raci (Sound of Metal), Rachel Keller (Legion) and Xander Berkeley (Heat), Butcher's Crossing played at numerous festivals - including the Dublin International Film Festival back in February - before getting a US cinema release last month.
Reviews for the movie have been quite positive, with many praising Cage's quietly commanding performance, the film's cinematography and its dark themes.
You can read a sample of some of the glowing write-ups for Butcher's Crossing below:
Chicago Sun-Times: "Butcher’s Crossing is a tightly spun, well-acted, beautifully shot and unforgiving slice of Old West madness."
IGN Movies: "Butcher’s Crossing is not the freshest of Westerns, but it does offer some bleak and gnarly imagery, gorgeous vistas, and Nicolas Cage in a subtle but poignant performance."
The Playlist: "Butcher’s Crossing is a gorgeous travelog and a warning about what happens when people fail to tread lightly in the natural world."
Wall Street Journal: "The film’s hints of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Moby-Dick and The Old Man and the Sea lend some much-needed weight to what would otherwise be a pedestrian story of men fighting the elements and one another."
Butcher's Crossing is streaming on Prime Video in Ireland and the UK now. Check out its trailer right here:
Read more:
