An Overlooked Brad Pitt 2000s Gem Is Suddenly Dominating Streaming 18 Years Later

Brad Pitt's slow-burn Western you probably skipped in 2007 is suddenly having a moment. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford just cracked the MGM+ streaming chart at #6 in the U.S., per FlixPatrol. Not bad for a movie that hit theaters almost two decades ago and got labeled, by Pitt himself, as the one "no one loved."

The movie Pitt still stands by

This is Andrew Dominik's meditative epic where Pitt plays Jesse James like a haunted myth and Casey Affleck plays Robert Ford with unnerving precision. It was adapted from Ron Hansen's novel, earned plenty of praise, and... that was about it at the time.

Pitt has always been unapologetically fond of it. In an Entertainment Weekly chat, he laughed about how poorly it did, admitted the studio wasn't thrilled, and then said this:

"I love that film too. I find it lyrical and poetic and under the surface."

So why did it faceplant in 2007?

Short version: expectations. It was marketed as a Western in the same year audiences were showing up for 3:10 to Yuma, which delivered classic genre thrills. Pitt was coming off crowd-pleasers, so people likely expected gunfights, not a nearly-three-hour character study that takes its time and asks you to lean in. Great movie, tough sell.

The numbers back that up. On a reported $30 million budget, it made only $15.3 million worldwide, according to The Numbers. That's the kind of math that makes a studio sigh loudly.

The love from critics never went away

Even if crowds didn't show, critics did. Casey Affleck scored an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and Roger Deakins was nominated for his gorgeous, melancholy cinematography. The Rotten Tomatoes scores sit in that quietly strong zone: 76% from critics, 75% from audiences.

Why it works better now

Streaming is kinder to movies like this. At home, the pace feels like the point, not a hurdle. You can let the film's mood and paranoia wash over you, pause it, come back, and appreciate the details. Which is probably why it's bubbling up again on MGM+.

• Title: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)
• Director: Andrew Dominik
• Stars: Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Sam Shepard, Mary-Louise Parker, Paul Schneider
• Source material: Adapted from Ron Hansen's novel
• Genre: Epic revisionist Western; more meditative than shootout-heavy
• Runtime: 160 minutes (so, yeah, almost three hours)
• Box office vs. budget: $15.3M worldwide on a $30M budget (per The Numbers)
• Awards attention: Oscar nominations for Casey Affleck (Supporting Actor) and Roger Deakins (Cinematography)
• Rotten Tomatoes: 76% critics, 75% audience
• Where to watch: Streaming on MGM+ in the U.S.; currently #6 on the service's chart (FlixPatrol)

If you bounced off it back in the day, fair. But if you meet it on its wavelength now, it plays like the elegy it always wanted to be.