This isn’t Kevin Costner’s first rodeo. We have a tendency to think of westerns as—they’re simple. They are not simple. They’re complicated.
So said Kevin Costner at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, during a press conference tied to the world premiere screening of his latest film, Horizon: An American Saga—Chapter 1. The journalists in attendance hung on his every word because when it comes to westerns, this is definitely a man who knows what he’s talking about.
In honor of Horizon’s theatrical debut, we’re looking back at the movies that made Kevin Costner famous.
Dances with Wolves
Kevin Costner earned an Academy Award for directing the epic 1990 western drama Dances with Wolves, in which he starred as John Dunbar, a suicidal Union Army officer who befriends the Lakota Sioux and begins a new and better life in their company. Roger Ebert gave the movie four stars, describing it as a simple story, magnificently told… [with] the epic sweep and clarity of a western by John Ford
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Open Range
More recently, Costner did double duty as director and star of Open Range (2003), a box-office hit that had him cast as Charley Waite, a grizzled cattle driver with a history of violence. When a corrupt town boss sends his goons after them, Charley warns his partner Boss Spearman (Robert Duvall), Once it starts, it’s gonna be messy like nothing you ever seen.
Silverado
Costner still speaks enthusiastically about his breakthrough role in director Lawrence Kasdan’s rousing 1985 western Silverado, in which he rode tall as part of a heroic quartet that also included Kevin Kline, Danny Glover, and Scott Glenn. Silverado showcased Costner in the attention-grabbing role of Jake, a skirt-chasing firebrand who draws guns and flirts with the same exuberant gusto.
Wyatt Earp
Kosdtnter didn’t smile much at all throughout the entirety of Lawrence Kasdan’s next Western,
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