The Homesman (2014)

Drama, Western

Director: Tommy Lee Jones
Writers: Tommy Lee Jones, Kieran Fitzgerald, Wesley A. Oliver, Glendon Swarthout
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Hilary Swank, Grace Gummer, Miranda Otto

Hillary Swank and Tommy Lee Jones in a period western drama directed and co-written by the latter.

Mary Bee Cuddy (Swank) is a single – although she is trying hard to marry herself off – woman living in the "Nebraska Territory" sometime in the 1850s. After three local women go crazy under the pressure of the Frontier life, she takes on the task of transporting them East to a place in Iowa, for proper care. She encounters George Briggs (Jones), a low-life criminal who is about to get hung by locals, and she convinces him to accompany her.

The Homesman is not your typical Western. It's one of those off-beat minor-key period drama that tells a story about how people deal with loneliness and madness, greatly capturing the harsh life in the mid-nineteenth century American West.

Plot summary from IMDb: Three women who have been driven mad by pioneer life are to be transported across the country by covered wagon by the pious, independent-minded Mary Bee Cuddy, who in turn employs low-life drifter George Briggs to assist her.

Awards: 3 wins & 10 nominations.
Runtime: 122 min
R