1973 Classic, Originally a Box Office Failure, Named Among Greatest Westerns of All Time
The Western genre dominated the 1950's and 60's with legendary films such as The Strangers, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and Once Upon a Time in The West.
In the 1970's came along a film that attempted to break the mold and deliver authentic characters, even though its production was ultimately doomed due to a split between the studio and its director.
Director Sam Peckinpah reached out to country legend Kris Kristofferson to play the role of Billy the Kid, even though the actor was 36 and the character he was playing was just 21.
The film was universally panned by most critics following the studio's decision to cut Peckinpah out of the final cut, which featured a staggering six different editors as it struggled to wrestle with the Western.
'Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid' Named Among Greatest Westerns
However, Timeout Magazine raved about the film as one of the greatest of all time, putting it at No. 2.
"Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is a film with few pretensions to realism: the world it creates is authentically shabby, dusty and wild, but the poetic antiheroes who populate it are knowingly grandiose, gloriously flawed and elegantly doomed. Billy even throws his arms open, Christ-like, when he's first arrested: Jesus with a six-gun," Timeout wrote.
"And yet, pretentious though it may occasionally be, there's simply nothing like Peckinpah's film anywhere else in the western genre, and perhaps in cinema as a whole. It's a film where image, music and meaning fuse inextricably to create unexpected and unprecedented moments of high emotion: that shot of Billy, arms akimbo, would be nothing without Dylan's music, or Kristofferson's beatific half-smile, or Peckinpah's glorious early-morning lighting, or the knowledge that Billy's surrender is inevitable, and so is his escape, and so is his death."
The film featured Bob Dylan, who was brought on by Kristofferson and made arguably his greatest hit, Knockin on Heaven's Door for the 1973 classic.
The ultimate version of the film released in theaters wasn't his original masterpiece and ended up grossing just $11 million worldwide, against an nearly $5 million budget.
Peckinpah's original version of the film, which was later released in 1988, received acclaim from many including Martin Scorsese.
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This story was originally published by Men's Journal on Jun 22, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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This story was originally published June 22, 2026 at 4:24 AM.