Sightlines · reception
How Hell or High Water was received
2016 · David Mackenzie · Hell or High Water on Sightlines
The arc
The sleeper of August 2016 — a quiet, mid-budget neo-Western dropped into a dead blockbuster summer that critics immediately crowned the movie of the season, then rode all the way to four Oscar nominations including Best Picture. Now it's remembered as the moment Taylor Sheridan's screenwriting empire truly ignited, the beloved middle child of his Sicario/Wind River frontier run.
What’s debated
Film fans still argue over which of Sheridan's 'frontier trilogy' is the peak — and whether his writerly cowboy-poetry dialogue is soulful Americana or a little too pleased with itself, a debate his Yellowstone era has only sharpened.
Its footprint
The T-bone waitress scene — 'What don't you want?' — is the film's immortal moment, endlessly quoted and clipped; the movie itself has become shorthand in the 'they don't make mid-budget movies for adults anymore' conversation, the exception everyone cites.
Where it stands
A modern neo-Western canon staple and certified dad-cinema/Letterboxd favorite, routinely shelved next to No Country for Old Men as proof the genre still breathes.
Did you know? Taylor Sheridan's screenplay — originally titled 'Comancheria' — topped the 2012 Black List of Hollywood's best unproduced scripts, and despite being set in West Texas the film was shot almost entirely in eastern New Mexico.