The Wild Bunch (1969)

Sam Peckinpah enjoys a bit of on screen violence, he went on to direct the ultra controversial Straw Dogs two years after this western phenomenon. I was advised to watch The Wild Bunch as part of my research for a piece of college coursework back in 2006, and sadly its taken me 15 years to get round to it. However, it was worth the wait. The film begins, and ends, with epic shootouts, but despite accusations of violence for the sake of violence The Wild Bunch justifies its brutality with well thought out backstory for each of the main characters. By the time the finale blows up explosively in your face, you can't wait for it to get going. At almost two and a half hours, this might be of similar length of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966), but it is the opposite in terms of pacing. It's a fantastic example of two absolute masterpieces of the genre, that go about their business in two completely different ways, but the end result of genius is exactly the same. 8.6/10