Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) is Sam Peckinpah's elegiac western you can watch online on iFILM, with James Coburn as the lawman and Kris Kristofferson as the outlaw he once called a friend. The frontier is closing, and the men who lived by its rules are being cleared out.

Garrett has taken a badge — and a contract from New Mexico cattle barons to hunt down Billy before he becomes a liability. Billy refuses to run. "Times change," he tells his former partner. The two men drift toward their inevitable collision, both fully aware of how it ends. Coburn plays Garrett as a man who does the ugly job without excuse or sentiment, which makes him harder to read than any villain. Bob Dylan composed the score and appears on screen in a small role; "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" was written for this film.

Peckinpah made his most mournful picture here — not a story of justice, but of an era eating its own. Stream Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) online on iFILM.