Michael Cimino's bleak anti-western based on events in 1890s Wyoming. Sheriff James Averill attempts to protect immigrant farmers from wealthy cattle interests, and also clashes with a hired gun, Nathan Champion, over the woman they both love, Ella Watson. Both men find themselves questioning their roles in the furious conflict between wealthy landowners and European immigrants attempting to build new lives on the American frontier, which culminates in a brutal pitched battle.

At one point during filming, Michael Cimino decided that the spacing of the buildings on one of the sets didn't look right, despite it having been built to his exact specifications. He ordered both sides of the street razed and rebuilt, at a cost of $1.2 million over the objections of his crew, who reasoned that it would be easier and cheaper to knock down one side of the street and rebuild it twice as far away.

James Averill:
You're not my class, Canton, and you never will be. You'd have to die first and be born again.

Errors in geography: The opening scenes of the film are supposed to take place at Harvard, but were shot in Oxford, England. Therefore, the exteriors are architecturally incorrect, since Oxford is distinctly in the Gothic style, as opposed to the Georgian style, which would be correct for Harvard.

(uncredited)
Music by William Steffe
Played by the marching band