The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Name: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Comedy, Romance, Western
Released: November 9, 2018
Duration: 133 min
Rating: 79
Cast: Alejandro Patiño, Brendan Gleeson, Clancy Brown, Danny McCarthy, David Krumholtz

2018

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 48 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 326 Ratings

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7.4

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7.4	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 326 Ratings

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The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs

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Movie Details & Credits

Netflix | Release Date: November 9, 2018 | Not Rated

Starring: Alejandro Patiño, Brendan Gleeson, Clancy Brown, Danny McCarthy, David Krumholtz, E.E. Bell, Harry Melling, James Franco, Katy Bodenhamer, Liam Neeson, Matthew Willig, Ralph Ineson, Stephen Root, Thomas Wingate, Tim Blake Nelson, Tim De Zarn, Tom Proctor, Tom Waits, Tyne Daly, Willie Watson, Zoe Kazan

Summary: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a six-part Western anthology film, a series of tales about the American frontier told through the unique and incomparable voice of Joel and Ethan Coen. Each chapter tells a distinct story about the American West.

Director: Ethan Coen and Joel Coen

Genre(s): Drama, Mystery, Comedy, Romance, Western, Musical

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 133 min

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Critic Reviews

100

Michael O'Sullivan

Nov 14, 2018

“The Mortal Remains” brings all these tales together beautifully, by which I mean in a coda that is somber and hauntingly unsettled, like the last note of a dirge. Its music lingers in the air long after the closing credits. Read full review

William Bibbiani

Nov 8, 2018

Few filmmakers are as playfully cynical as the Coens, and in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs they haven’t just made a funny, sentimental, exciting and blistering western, they’ve also unlocked their entire filmography for anyone who may have missed the connections before. And there’s no going back now. It’s the Coen Bros.’ world, and good luck to anyone who lives there. Read full review

Richard Roeper

Nov 19, 2018

If six people walked into a screening of the Coen brothers’ Western anthology The Ballad of Buster Scruggs at six different times, they too would come away with vastly contrasting impressions. Read full review

Alissa Wilkinson

Oct 24, 2018

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a tall tale about death, a murder ballad about us, trapped in a universe that is mostly unreasonable and nonsensical. And at the end of the journey we’re left laughing through the lump in our throat. Read full review

Josh Larsen

Nov 19, 2018

There are laughs aplenty in this lawless, arbitrary, mythological Old West, but a feel-good yarn it ain’t. Read full review

Todd McCarthy

Aug 31, 2018

Part sincere and part smarmy, part amusing and part windy nonsense, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs plays like an old Western-themed vaudeville show featuring six unrelated sketches of drastically differing quality. Read full review

Michael Phillips

Nov 15, 2018

It’s a strange, grimly comic collection offering many grotesque sight gags, the occasional moment of seriousness and a general wash of melancholic, photogenic, elegiac Old West atmosphere. I liked the least jokey tale the best; by the time it came along, in the fifth-out-of-six slot, I’d had it with the kidding. Read full review

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User Reviews

mdbackes

Nov 17, 2018

Ballad of Buster Scruggs is the Coen brothers through and through. Blackly funny, genuinely eccentric, featuring excellent actors and incredible cinematography. What might go unnoticed is that Buster Scruggs contains some of the best short filmmaking in decades. More than a few of theseBallad of Buster Scruggs is the Coen brothers through and through. Blackly funny, genuinely eccentric, featuring excellent actors and incredible cinematography. What might go unnoticed is that Buster Scruggs contains some of the best short filmmaking in decades. More than a few of these short films have the richness of storytelling typically only found in feature length films. I really enjoyed it and will certainly rewatch it. Congrats to Netflix for making it.… Expand

11 of 15 users found this helpful114

Coenonly

Nov 26, 2018

Buster Scruggs is a speck in the distance of the most spectacular of all the Western Landscapes ... Monument Valley.
We hear his uptempo clip clop version of Cool Clear Water.
The Coens aren't about that kind of nourishment though. For them it's all about the ideas and basically blowing yourBuster Scruggs is a speck in the distance of the most spectacular of all the Western Landscapes ... Monument Valley.
We hear his uptempo clip clop version of Cool Clear Water.
The Coens aren't about that kind of nourishment though.
For them it's all about the ideas and basically blowing your mind one way or another.
They marry up images into pairs that mysteriously inform one another. Like the way the feet line up at the demise inspections in Busters final shootouts, and the camera notes it and the editor notes it and it is in you brain like a clue to the mystery and that's what it is.
They say if they become aware of subtext they put it in the real text. I find this hard to fathom that they don't do subtext.
It's their dedication to this mystery I suppose.
They turn away from certainties like they've seen a ghost.
Death is pretty certain but even on that point they find disparities. They want the mystery, they need the mystery and that's the stock in trade. In life we are bombarded by the sound of certainty in all it's salesman glory. Check with the most cursory inspection and those realities fall vulnerable. Yet within the uncertain framework they present you find yourself these little light bulbs that illuminate some point or other.
A point that artists are to contribute or out you go into the cold flowing river. Or is it the cruel world that doesn't understand?
The Coens have six shorts in this chamber and they have worked like ten prospectors to uncover and manifest the greatest ever shootout with Hollywood's Western Mythology.
Let them blow you away into the dust or what you think is anyway.… Expand

0 of 2 users found this helpful02

Meelsthoughts

Feb 12, 2020

A modern take on western. With it's dry humour to its fantastic soundtrack, 'The Ballad of Buster Scruggs' offers entertainment for those with a dry humour and love of a good storyline. As an outright parody of the old westerns, this film is made up of six short stories. 'The Ballad ofA modern take on western. With it's dry humour to its fantastic soundtrack, 'The Ballad of Buster Scruggs' offers entertainment for those with a dry humour and love of a good storyline. As an outright parody of the old westerns, this film is made up of six short stories. 'The Ballad of Buster Scruggs' pokes fun at the outlandish world of gun-slingers, gold diggers and unlikely heroes. However, it sets itself apart from the predictably silly, Hollywood-churned out modern westerns as the parody aspect of this film is grounded in its reminiscence of the tales read to us as children. This movie is a modern throwback of sorts, entertaining us with its quick wit and one liners.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

eagleeyeviking

Feb 17, 2019

With consistent tone and quality of writing tying each story, "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" is a rich and engrossing Coen Brothers western film.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

amheretojudge

Nov 17, 2018

leaping from one character to another..

The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs Coen Brothers' western ride on the tell tale narration is much more layered than Leone's grimy cowboy attitude. With a storytelling like such, that is a compilation of various tales, often tends to lose the grip and failsleaping from one character to another..

The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs

Coen Brothers' western ride on the tell tale narration is much more layered than Leone's grimy cowboy attitude. With a storytelling like such, that is a compilation of various tales, often tends to lose the grip and fails to make you root for the track despite of leaping from one character to another. But this shear passion of Coen Brothers cuts all these rumored hoax of cinema and soars above all with an adaptive and layered script. As always, the storytelling is often brimmed with humoristic tone which is aptly balanced and never shucks away the intensity of the gunpowder.

The first act pretty much works like your textbook structure, that shows you the brief description of what is about to come; not to mention it is the funniest bit of all. Franco takes in the second chapter, that gives you a more Eastwood-y feeling like wooden boards creaking, wind howling and gunshots puffing smoke, it characterizes the western world, the best. Neeson's act is the one that haunts you the most, for both the reasons; its beauty and sadism.

It has the range to soothe you and give you the goosebumps, that harrowing silent pitch on screen cannot be toned down by even the beautiful live location it wanders through. Gait's sort-of-a-diary-version has the thirst for seeking the truth out, hardwork and patience, combining all this, it is certainly the most glorifying segment of all. Kazan's personal venture is complex to the core where the uncertainty of the trajectory easily helps Coen Brothers to fiddle with your emotions. And the last section of the segment is so bizarrely ingenious that you are left with your head spinning on the edge of the seat.

The final act on the cart is more scary than it is funny, you can practically see each step of the structure leaning towards a darker path, no matter how ironical the stories keep getting, and on that note where Coen Brothers are messing with you subconsciously, this is a complete triumph on the western drama. Now, having these many plots and ergo these many characters, each actor gets a stand out moment to impress the viewers with their expressive performance. But the ones that do among this caliber of cast, are Kazan, Gaits, Gleeson and Neeson.

Unlike such stories usually does, there is no mutual theme to it, it may feel coequal, but each tale has a rare soul that emits a newer version, a fresher version of itself. The execution is undoubtedly on the mark, and armed with such meticulous script, its grittiness is what's bubbled up by the Coen Brothers. Aforementioned, there are few fluctuations on the nature of the layered segments, it still bodes well to the flow of the movie and never comes across any bumps. The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs is, yes, your typical Coen Brothers adventure that is crafted out with a sensational cast, but personally I'd choose True Grit version vocab of theirs.… Expand

4 of 8 users found this helpful44

JLuis_001

Nov 17, 2018

After the disappointing Hail, Caesar! I would say that my expectations for a new Coens film were not that high anymore but both are still very good directors and screenwriters and definitely The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a more satisfying film but it's also far from being memorable.After the disappointing Hail, Caesar! I would say that my expectations for a new Coens film were not that high anymore but both are still very good directors and screenwriters and definitely The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is a more satisfying film but it's also far from being memorable.

Although I'm aware that in the first instance it was planned for these stories to be a miniseries, the truth is that it turned out better as a film. The last thing I would expect from the Coens was an anthology and although the final result is satisfactory enough, the narrative quality of all the stories is quite uneven.

I think they realized they functioned better as an ensemble than as separate entities in a miniseries with obviously more extensive storytelling processes but that evidently wouldn't have been equally fruitful.

They still don't surpass Inside Llewyn Davis but maybe with the Coens that is their process: they deliver a couple of regular films to finish off with an excellent one. They have been doing it since Fargo.… Expand

3 of 7 users found this helpful34

pleitch

May 26, 2022

Generally bad but it does get worse as you watch.

At no point do you feel good for watching these stories. It's like taking every key part of all westerns and ruining them. This seems to be an unpopular opinion. I don't know if it's because I've seen actual westerns, whether I've seen goodGenerally bad but it does get worse as you watch.

At no point do you feel good for watching these stories. It's like taking every key part of all westerns and ruining them.

This seems to be an unpopular opinion. I don't know if it's because I've seen actual westerns, whether I've seen good movies or maybe just taste.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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86	#86 Best Movie of 2018
65	#65 Most Discussed Movie of 2018