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The Outlaw Josey Wales poster

Movies that feel likeThe Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

After avenging his family's brutal murder, Wales is pursued by a pack of soldiers. He prefers to travel alone, but ragtag outcasts are drawn to him - and Wales can't bring himself to leave them unprotected.

If you loved The Outlaw Josey Wales, the closest films we have are Unforgiven (1992), My Darling Clementine (1946) and Bleeder (1999). All three share The Outlaw Josey Wales' gritty and relentless feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is The Outfit (1973).

🍅 91% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7.8 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Clint Eastwoodgrittymelancholyrelentless
7 of 12 streaming nowHBO Max · Criterion Channel · AMC+

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If The Outlaw Josey Wales hit the spot, these will too

Unforgiven poster
Unforgiven
1992 · dir. Clint Eastwood
🍅 96%★ 8.2western

Clint Eastwood working the same nerve twice

The difference: Trades the melancholy of The Outlaw Josey Wales for an angle of its own

William Munny is a retired, once-ruthless killer turned gentle widower and hog farmer. To help support his two motherless children, he accepts one last bounty-hunter mission to find the men who brutalized a prostitute. Joined by his former partner and a cocky greenhorn, he takes on a corrupt sheriff.

My Darling Clementine poster
My Darling Clementine
1946 · dir. John Ford
🍅 100%★ 7.7western

Both are built on the same subject: revenge

The difference: 30 years apart, and the 1940s show

Three brothers stop off for a night in the town of Tombstone. The next morning they find one of their brothers dead and their cattle stolen. They decide to take revenge on the culprits.

Bleeder poster
Bleeder
1999 · dir. Nicolas Winding Refn
★ 6.8drama · crime

One thread runs through both: revenge

The difference: Leans harder into drama than The Outlaw Josey Wales does

Two stories for the price of one: a video store clerk tries to get acquainted with a waitress; a man beats his pregnant wife, unaware that her brother is a violent racist.

The Outfit poster
The Outfit
1973 · dir. John Flynn
🍅 86%★ 7crime · drama

Gritty and relentless in the same breath

A two-bit criminal takes on the Mafia to avenge his brother's death. Earl Macklin is a small time criminal who is released from prison after an unsuccessful bank robbery only to discover that a pair of gunmen killed his brother.

Sholay poster
Sholay
1975 · dir. Ramesh Sippy
🍅 95%★ 8.1action

Melancholy western in both cases

After his family is slain by notorious bandit Gabbar Singh, former Inspector Thakur Baldev Singh enlists low-level outlaws Jai and Veeru to capture Gabbar and seek revenge.

The Big Heat poster
The Big Heat
1953 · dir. Fritz Lang
🍅 95%★ 7.9crime · thriller

Western built on grit, twice over

The difference: Made in the 1950s, in a different era of the craft

After the suspicious suicide of a fellow cop, tough homicide detective Dave Bannion takes the law into his own hands when he sets out to smash a vicious crime syndicate.

Red River poster
Red River
1948 · dir. Howard Hawks
🍅 100%★ 7.7western · drama · adventure

The same preoccupation in both: texas

Following the Civil War, headstrong rancher Thomas Dunson decides to lead a perilous cattle drive from Texas to Missouri. During the exhausting journey, his persistence becomes tyrannical in the eyes of Matthew Garth, his adopted son and protégé.

Lady Snowblood poster
Lady Snowblood
1973 · dir. Toshiya Fujita
🍅 100%★ 7.6action · crime · dramaMax

Both lean on relentlessness more than on western

A strikingly beautiful young woman is trained from birth to be a deadly instrument of revenge against the swindlers who destroyed her family.

The Salvation poster
The Salvation
2014 · dir. Kristian Levring
🍅 72%★ 6.7drama · westernParamount+

Both run gritty where it counts

In 1870s America, a peaceful American settler kills his family's murderer which unleashes the fury of a notorious gang leader. His cowardly fellow townspeople then betray him, forcing him to hunt down the outlaws alone.

Elle poster
Elle
2016 · dir. Paul Verhoeven
🍅 91%★ 7.1drama · thriller

The shared currency is melancholy

When Michèle, the CEO of a gaming software company, is attacked in her home by an unknown assailant, she refuses to let it alter her precisely ordered life. She manages crises involving family, all the while becoming engaged in a game of cat and mouse with her stalker.

Cool Hand Luke poster
Cool Hand Luke
1967 · dir. Stuart Rosenberg
🍅 100%★ 8drama · crime

Both keep coming back to the same thing: grief

When petty criminal Luke Jackson is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, he doesn't play by the rules of either the sadistic warden or the yard's resident heavy, Dragline, who ends up admiring the new guy's unbreakable will. Luke's bravado, even in the face of repeated stints in the prison's dreaded solitary confinement cell, "the box," make him a rebel hero to his fellow convicts and a thorn in the side of the prison officers.

Harakiri poster
Harakiri
1962 · dir. Masaki Kobayashi
🍅 100%★ 8.6action · drama · history

A streak of melancholy through both

Down-on-his-luck veteran Tsugumo Hanshirō enters the courtyard of the prosperous House of Iyi. Unemployed, and with no family, he hopes to find a place to commit seppuku—and a worthy second to deliver the coup de grâce in his suicide ritual. The senior counselor for the Iyi clan questions the ronin’s resolve and integrity, suspecting Hanshirō of seeking charity rather than an honorable end. What follows is a pair of interlocking stories which lay bare the difference between honor and respect, and promises to examine the legendary foundations of the Samurai code.

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The best-reviewed films that share The Outlaw Josey Wales’ defining feeling.