In the late 19th century, a gruesome power consumes the land and destroys a holy man's life. The preacher has to find his purpose in life to combat the walking dead.
In 1880s Australia, a lawman offers renegade Charlie Burns a difficult choice. In order to save his younger brother from the gallows, Charlie must hunt down and kill his older brother, who is wanted for rape and murder. Venturing into one of the Outback's most inhospitable regions, Charlie faces a terrible moral dilemma that can end only in violence.
The fastest gun in the West tries to escape his reputation.
Chicago detectives in the 1880s head west to find the killers of their colleague.
Johnny Mack Brown is sent to the badlands to round up an elusive outlaw gang.
Following a killing and robbery in a big city back east, gang leader Kedge Darvas and some of his henchies take a train to a small western town in Idaho, with intentions of hiding out there until things cool down back in Chi or NYC, or wherever they lammed from.They are welcomed with open arms by the citizens under the impression they are there as capital investors with money to spend. Before long, Darvas figures the town is ripe for the taking and sends word for reinforcements, and each arriving train unloads a few suits and snappy-brim hats.Then they get rough, kill Sheriff Posey Meed and rile up the citizens, led by cowhand Brad Farley, who had Darvas spotted for a wrong number just by the way he made moves on Sue Vancey.
An old geezer recalls some of the antics of the citizens of his Western town, more wild and woolly than Tombstone or Dodge City. In this town, they shoot like Stormtroopers, the women seek new meat, and practical jokers abound.
Back from the US to his village in Niger, a man brings American Western outfits to his close friends, who immediately identify with cowboys. A bloody western begins in the savannah.
Cole Thornton, a gunfighter for hire, joins forces with an old friend, Sheriff J.P. Harrah. Together with a fighter and a gambler, they help a rancher and his family fight a rival rancher that is trying to steal their water.
In the 1820s, a frontiersman, Hugh Glass, sets out on a path of vengeance against those who left him for dead after a bear mauling.
The four sons of Katie Elder reunite in their hometown of Clearwater, Texas for her funeral and discover that the family ranch is now in the hands of Morgan Hastings, a corrupt businessman who wants to exploit the area around the town.
Gare uses the knowledge that his wife Amelia was imprisoned and had an illegitimate son to make her his subject. When her son Marc Jordan appears and falls in love with her daughter Judith, Amelia is forced to tell the truth. Gare then tyrannizes Judith. She tries to escape, but a fatal accident occurs first.
Young Travis Coates is left to take care of the family ranch with his mother and younger brother while his father goes off on a cattle drive in the 1860s. When a yellow mongrel comes for an uninvited stay with the family, Travis reluctantly adopts the dog.
A Texan sheriff and his younger brother travel across the border into Mexico to confront the man who killed their father.
Imprisoned for a murder he did not commit, John Brant escapes and ends up out west where, after giving the local lawmen the slip, he joins up with an outlaw gang. Brant finds out that 'Jones', one of the outlaws he has become friends with, committed the murder that Brant was sent up for, but has no knowledge that anyone was ever put in jail for his crime. Willing to forgive and forget, Brant doesn't realize that 'Jones' has not only fallen for the same pretty shopgirl Brant has, but begins to suspect that Brant is not truly an outlaw.
Gunslinger Clayton Drumm is about to be hanged when he is given a chance to live if he agrees to murder Matthew, a miner who has steadfastly refused to sell his land to the railroad company. Matthew’s refusal is a major obstacle to the railroad’s plans for expansion.
A con man heading west to search for gold teams up with a pair of scheming brothers along the way. The trio soon find themselves in the middle of a feud between two rival families and two underhanded land developers.
Bandits lead by Matt the Mute enter a bar and kill multiple people. Randy Bowers comes to town and is framed by Matt the Mute, who is working with the sheriff (who doesn't know Matt is really a criminal). Randy escapes with the help of the niece of the dead owner of the bar. Bowers ends up running from the sheriff, and ends up in the cave in which the bandits have their hide-out…
Sheriff John Higgins quits and goes into prospecting after he thinks he has killed his best friend in shooting it out with robbers. He encounters his dead buddy's sister and helps her run her ranch. Then she finds out about his past.
CREMASTER 2 is rendered as a gothic Western that introduces conflict into the system. On the biological level it corresponds to the phase of fetal development during which sexual division begins. In Matthew Barney's abstraction of this process, the system resists partition and tries to remain in the state of equilibrium imagined in Cremaster 1.