Scenic Wonders of America: American West

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Firehand and his Apache friend Winnetou are determined to get justice for the murder of four young braves. They set off to track down the gang responsible for the horrendous act.

Will Lockhart arrives in Coronado, an isolated town in New Mexico, in search of someone who sells rifles to the Apache tribe, finding himself unwillingly drawn into the convoluted life of a local ranching family whose members seem to have a lot to hide.

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.