The Coen Brothers‘ offbeat sensibilities have dominated multiple genres, but they always eventually circle back to their true love, the Western. That adoration is not only obvious within these works but has paid off handsomely in terms of box-office success, critical acclaim, and Oscar gold. After all, No Country For Old Men (a neo-Western, to be fair) won 2008 Best Picture, and True Grit was nominated as such in 2011. And in a sign of the times, perhaps, Ethan and Joel’s latest Western effort, The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs, will screen on Netflix after winning Best Screenplay at the Venice Film Festival.
The trailer, above, stars Tim Blake Nelson and James Franco and gives viewers a taste of this film, originally conceived as a six-part anthology series, which is set in the 19th-century post-Civil War era amid the settling of the Old West. Zoe Kazan, Liam Neeson, and Tom Waits also feature within the movie, and the trailer features dodgy/quick-trigger fingers aplenty, violent flourishes, and a crowning touch of dialogue from Franco while he’s about to be hanged. To the sobbing man next to him, he asks, “First time?” It’s even more than we’ve come to expect from the Coens.
Of their Netflix destination, the brothers previously told Rolling Stone, “We are streaming motherf*ckers.” The film will also receive a limited theatrical release, which will not only qualify the film for Academy Award consideration but please audiences who dig those sweeping landscapes so beautifully captured by the Coens.
The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs lands on Netflix in November.
