Remaking a classic piece of cinema is a shot that many directors take and one that can be incredibly hit or miss. If you stick the landing, you’ll end up proving that some iconic movies can continue to attract a new audience through an updated story, but if you mess it up, the results can be career ending. Just ask Robert Zemeckis and the team behind his live-action version of Disney’s Pinocchio or Tim Burton, who took a big swing and completely botched it when he attempted to put his own spin on the sci-fi favorite Planet of the Apes. On the other side of the coin, helmers like William Wyler and Martin Scorsese went down in history thanks to nabbing Oscar wins for their remakes Ben-Hur and The Departed, respectively.
In the world of remakes, everything is up for grabs, with every genre under the sun in the running as a possibility. But when it comes to the subject of today’s chatter, we’d like to turn your attention to Westerns. The rough and tumble branch of cinema is no stranger to adaptations and revamps, with many films stemming from popular pieces of literature and ideas that have already garnered a fan base in the past. Favorites amongst genre fans might include Antoine Fuqua’s star-studded event The Magnificent Seven and James Mangold’s 3:10 to Yuma. While both Fuqua and Mangold’s remakes introduce something completely fresh to their respective storylines while, at the same time, staying true to the projects that came before, there’s one Western remake that reigns supreme.
The show that claimed the most of your answers is the world you were built for. If two tied, both are shown — you’re complicated enough to straddle two Sheridan universes.
You are a Dutton — or you might as well be. You understand that some things are worth protecting at any cost, and that the modern world’s indifference to history, to land, to legacy, is not something you’re willing to accept quietly. You lead from the front, you carry your family’s weight without complaint, and when someone threatens what’s yours, you don’t escalate — you finish it. You’re not cruel. But you are absolute. In Yellowstone’s world, that combination of ferocity and loyalty doesn’t make you a villain. It makes you the only thing standing between everything that matters and everyone who wants to take it.
You thrive in the chaos of high-stakes negotiation, where the money is enormous, the margins are thin, and the wrong word in the wrong room can cost everyone everything. You’re a fixer — the person called when a situation is already on fire and needs someone with the nerve to walk into it. West Texas oil country rewards exactly what you are: sharp, adaptable, unsentimental, and absolutely clear-eyed about what people want and what they’ll do to get it. You’re not naive enough to think this world is fair. You’re smart enough to be the one deciding who it’s fair to.
You are a Dwight Manfredi — someone who has served their time, paid their dues, and arrived somewhere unexpected with nothing but their reputation and their wits. You adapt without losing yourself. You build loyalty through respect rather than fear, though you’re not above reminding people that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Tulsa King is for people who are still standing when everyone assumed they’d be finished — who find, in an unfamiliar place, that they’re more capable than the world gave them credit for. You don’t need a throne. You build one, wherever you happen to land.
You carry the weight of a system that is broken by design, and you do it anyway — because someone has to, and because you’re the only one positioned to do it without the whole thing collapsing. Mike McLusky’s world is for people who are comfortable operating where there are no good options, only less catastrophic ones. You speak every language: law enforcement, criminal, political, human. That fluency makes you invaluable and it makes you a target. You’ve made your peace with both. Mayor of Kingstown belongs to people who understand that keeping the peace is not the same as being at peace — and who do the job regardless.
At the top of our list is Ethan and Joel Coen’s True Grit, which first stormed the scene in 2010 thanks to leading performances by Jeff Bridges and an at the time up-and-coming young star named Hailee Steinfeld. Serving as an adaptation of the 1968 Charles Portis novel of the same name, which previously received a big screen imagining thanks to filmmaker Henry Hathaway and leading man John Wayne, the movie stuck close to the author’s original work while also incorporating the style that the directorial pair of siblings have built a career on. And, there’s terrific news for those who have yet to see the modern-day masterpiece as, beginning on May 1, it will be streaming completely free of charge on Tubi.
With numerous accolades under its belt, including a whopping 10 Academy Award nominations, there’s no arguing that the Coen brothers’ True Grit is a must-watch when it lassos the free streamer next month.
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Joel Coen, Ethan Coen