Scenic Wonders of America: American West

In 1964, Les Blank filmed 45 minutes of motorcycles for a documentary film that was never completed. Before his death in 2013, he asked his son Harrod Blank to cut the footage to the music of The 13th Floor Elevators. Edited by Ben Abrams, this film captures the vastness of the American West at a time when the motorcycle was the ultimate in highway adventure.

La grande prairie, le pacte du bison

Did you know that the first cowboys were black? Using magnificent archives and testimonies from historians, Cécile Denjean restores justice to African-Americans in the story of the conquest of the West.

The evolution of the depiction of the various Native American peoples in cinema, from the silent era to the present day: how their image on the screen has changed the way to understand their history and culture.

Inspired by films like Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas and David Byrne's True Stories, photographer Jason Lee set out to document residual American landscapes across Texas in early 2017 with large format color films for his recently released book A PLAIN VIEW. This short documentary follows Jason on the road during a four-day stretch in West Texas.

Acid rain, economic development, and a century of mining pollute Rocky Mountain waters.

Documentary on water usage, money, politics, the transformation of nature, and the growth of the American west, shown on PBS as a four-part miniseries.

The drought in the American West is predicted to be the worst in 1,000 years. Join five Academy Award-winning filmmakers as they explore the environmental crisis of our time and how to fix it before it's too late.

A reflection on anarchism and labor, ANCIENT SUNSHINE marks a path through the struggles of climate activism and coal extractions in the American West.

Told in the cinematic tradition of classic westerns, “COWBOYS - A Documentary Portrait” is a feature-length film that gives viewers the opportunity to ride alongside modern working cowboys on some of America's largest and most remote cattle ranches. The movie documents the lives of the men and women working on these "big outfit" ranches - some of which are over one million acres - and still require full crews of horseback mounted workers to tend large herds of cattle. Narrated through first-hand accounts from the cowboys themselves, the story is steeped in authenticity and explores the rewards and hardships of a celebrated but misunderstood way of life, including the challenges that lie ahead for the cowboys critical to providing the world's supply of beef. “COWBOYS” was filmed on eight of the nation’s largest cattle ranches across ten states in the American West.

A personal meditation on the landscape of the American West that tracks the ruling conception in nature in the 19th and 20th centuries from the pioneers through the instamatic tourists, at the same time that it obsessively follows the four seasons. The elemental vicissitudes of the weather, the exact moment of the day, the colour of the light and the soil and the trees form an acute visual record of the constantly changing mood of the landscape. The film successfully attempts, with quiet, passionate, almost single-minded firmness, to confront us as nakedly as possible with our cultural inability to see nature whole, without preconceptions.

Vignettes weaving together the stories of six individuals in the old West at the end of the Civil War. Following the tales of a sharp-shooting songster, a wannabe bank robber, two weary traveling performers, a lone gold prospector, a woman traveling the West to an uncertain future, and a motley crew of strangers undertaking a carriage ride.

Dracula travels to the American West, intent on making a beautiful ranch owner his next victim. Her fiance, outlaw Billy the Kid, finds out about it and rushes to save her.

In the 1870s, a young Harvard dropout seeks his destiny out West by tying his fate to a team of buffalo hunters led by a man named Miller. Together, they embark on a harrowing journey risking life and sanity.

Two outlaws are trying to steal a shipment of gold being guarded by Deputy Droopy, and have to keep quiet to avoid alerting the sheriff.

An "absolutely authentic account of the grazing land battles of the sheep and cattle wars of the early west," pitting sheep rancher Droopy against a cattle ranching wolf.

Retired wealthy sea captain Jim McKay arrives in the Old West, where he becomes embroiled in a feud between his future father-in-law, Major Terrill, and the rough and lawless Hannasseys over a valuable patch of land.

Stoic and heartbroken, Einar Gilkyson quietly lives in the rugged Wyoming ranchlands alongside his only trusted friend, Mitch Bradley. One day, the woman he blames for the death of his only son arrives at his door broke, desperate, and with a granddaughter he's never known. But even as buried anger and accusations resurface, the way is opened for unexpected connection, adventure, and forgiveness.

When Sheriff Roy Pulsipher finds himself in the afterlife, he joins a special police force and returns to Earth to save humanity from the undead.

Two young horse traders guide a Mormon wagon train to the San Juan Valley and encounter rugged terrain, the cutthroat Clegg gang, hospitable Navajo, and moral challenges on the journey.