The One Western Taylor Sheridan Ranks Above All: Unforgiven

Taylor Sheridan knows his way around a Western, and he knows exactly which one towers over the rest. A few years after Wind River, he rattled off his five favorite movies in an interview and made it crystal clear which horse he was backing when it comes to the genre.

The five that shaped him

His picks were a mix of canon and curveballs, with one Western sitting on top of the heap:

• The Godfather
• Platoon
• The Insider
• Kramer vs. Kramer
• Unforgiven

Why 'Unforgiven' hits different for Sheridan

Sheridan does not mince words about Clint Eastwood's revisionist masterpiece:

'Clint Eastwood demystified and destroyed our notion of a Western.'

He is talking about a movie that strips the genre of its shiny mythmaking. Instead of square-jawed righteousness, Unforgiven gives us William Munny (Eastwood), an aging, widowed gunslinger trying to raise two kids on a failing hog farm. When a bounty goes up after a prostitute is disfigured, Munny reluctantly saddles up for one last job with old friend Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) and an eager young hotshot known as the Schofield Kid. Their target is a pair of cowboys. Their obstacle is Sheriff 'Little Bill' Daggett (Gene Hackman), who rules his town with an iron fist and has no interest in strangers playing hero.

Munny is not the mythic avenger of yesteryear. He falls off his horse. His aim is shaky. He second-guesses himself. John Wayne would have hated it, and yes, he and Eastwood famously did not get along.

The performances (and the hardware)

Sheridan zeroes in on the acting: Eastwood leans into the aches and regrets of getting old; Freeman has that quiet dignity he deploys better than almost anyone; and Hackman, who took home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, turns Little Bill into something chillingly human. The movie did not stop there at the podium either, also grabbing Best Picture, Best Director for Eastwood, and Film Editing.

The way people talk in this thing

Sheridan also calls out Eastwood's writing and staging: the confessions, the prickly silences, and the unvarnished language that rarely popped up in classic Westerns. In the final stretch, Munny calmly admits the worst of himself before promising worse for Little Bill. It is a gut-punch because the movie has earned the honesty.

The Yellowstone connection you can feel (and hear)

Sheridan has always been open about where Yellowstone came from. When he was selling it, he pitched the series as 'The Godfather in Montana.' Once you watch Unforgiven, the DNA lines up. The Duttons operate on an anything-goes survival code, doing ugly things to keep a legacy intact. That relentless fixation on land and lineage mirrors Munny's own breaking point: a failing farm, two kids who need a future, and a man willing to cross his own lines to secure it.

There is even a musical hat-tip: in Yellowstone Season 1, Episode 6, Sheridan dropped in 'Claudia's Theme' from Unforgiven. He actually went straight to Eastwood to ask permission, expecting a polite no. Instead, Eastwood said yes. Sheridan has credited Unforgiven as 'the film that made me decide that is what I want to do for a living.' Not subtle. Not meant to be.

If you somehow missed 'Unforgiven'

Eastwood directs and stars, with Freeman and Jaimz Woolvett riding along as partners who do not see the same West, and Hackman owning the screen as the small-town tyrant who calls it 'order.' The film is about the cost of violence, the lie of legend, and what it takes to bury a past that refuses to stay buried. If Yellowstone is your thing, Munny will make a lot of sense.