If only the big bad corporation hadn't come--then Julie Christie's madame would have avoided a life chained to the opium den and enjoyed the "freedom" of the whorehouse, while Beatty's inept businessman would have happily continued his hard drinking and gambling ways without consequence. Pretty photography, but I prefer my movies at least be honest about the kinds of lives its characters lead.

Pitch-perfect role for Warren Beatty as John McCabe, a gambler, charmer and reputed gunslinger who swiftly establishes himself as the big businessman running a saloon and brothel in the wintery town of Presbyterian Church, but encounters with seasoned madame Mrs. Miller and other less friendly business interests suggest he might not have the gall to match the big splash he makes in this lonely backwater.

Robert Altman's greatest film and possibly the best Western ever made. Wonderfully photographed by Vilmos Zsigmond. Saw it described once a "gauzily mellow" which sounds about right.

This is a surprisingly brutal anti-western with barely any sympathetic people nor heroes or villains really. The whole point was to showcase the trials and tribulations of a grimy frontier town where law and order goes only as far as a man's word. There is a fatalistic edge to their world. Warren Beatty turns in an excellent performance as a morally bankrupt card dealer, drunk, and brothel owner. This is probably one of Altman's finest and most memorable films.

A perhaps too-realistic Western that wastes its top-notch cast and settings in a numbing exercise of mumbling, murkiness and deeply depressing futility. Greatly over-rated.

Beautifully shot anti-western. Warren Beatty as the simple businessman John McCabe is absolutely perfect. Julie Christie keeps up with him the whole way in this alluring tale. Seemingly interesting music choices are truly fitting. Wonderful ending on top of that.

The farther I dive into Altman, the more I like. I knew I was gonna love it from the first couple of seconds when the Leonard Cohen song started playing. Beatty is particularly great, but the rest of the cast keeps up with him just as well. Add in great cinematography plus a great ending and it turns into a classic for me.

Thanks to the dreary and mellow Leonard Cohen soundtrack, the persistently dim and dull-colored lighting, the uninspired and claustrophobic set design of the town, and the cast of unattractive whores (even Julie Christie looked pretty hideous with that curly hair), I can easily say this is one of the most disconcerting and ugliest movies I've ever seen.

Fucking brilliant.

great film, but it looked and felt so different that i'll have to see it again before placing it among my top faves

There are many who consider this film to be the quintessential Altman effort, and it's not hard to see why. The hallmarks of Altman's legend are all there: the overlapping dialogue, the moral ambivalence, the richly-conceived characters. Most importantly and impressively, the film is a thrilling example of the ways in which Altman pulls all these elements of his craft together to give the sense of a fully developed culture and society.

One of the greatest westerns ever made. Arguably Altman's most memorable work, and easily his most haunting.

Sad, snowy, elegiac western.

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Billed as an "anti-western", the film definitely lives up to that description. A fascinating film that deserves to be seen more than once.

A painfully beautiful gem. Julie Christie's eyes and Leonard Cohen's Stranger song will stick with you forever.

Is this film has a meaning? Except bad snow effects...

Remarkably understated and bittersweet. Altman obliterates western conventions, just as Mrs. Miller smashes all notions of what a woman of this period is supposed to be. McCabe is stubborn, and perhaps less than meets the eye. His heated relationship with Mrs. Miller, underscored by a mutual fondness and charming chemistry, reveals that he's pretty much a phony. Still, he remains a vulnerable and sympathetic character.

A masterpiece. Visually this is absolutely beautiful, Beatty and Christie are great and I liked the use of Leonard Cohen. But really, it's hard to say why I liked this film so much. Maybe it's the excellent atmosphere, which makes this one of those films you get lost in.

Really slow movie, but definitely worth its while. Great performances and a great ending. Shittiest sound mix ever, though, in the first 30-40 minutes, that is. Have never heard a more human-brain-confusing mix of dialogue and background noises.

On a visual aesthetic level it is extraordinary, there's a muddy realism to the look and yet the film is still stunningly beautiful. I've gotta say though that the combination of Leonard Cohen's music and Warren Beatty's bumbling performance had a slightly soporific effect on me. And whilst the film has a rich rueful quality to it, the whole cold fatalism thing stopped me from really connecting with it emotionally. So I liked it a lot, but unlike a lot of people wasn't exactly blown away.

I feel I should like this more than I do, and I think part of the problem is that I might have watched it during the wrong time of year. It's definitely a story for winter, and the cold that helps define the last moments is brilliant - and a stroke of luck for the filmmakers, since it was reportedly nature intervening - but a bit less inviting on a warm summer day. I think I'll have to revisit it on a cold December night.

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This is a film that never really gets going. The acting is fine but the story is very slow with to many boring parts. There are numerous Robert Altman films that are better than this one.

Warren Beatty and Julie Christie make this an interesting watch. It doesn't wallow in the same clichés as many of its peers (genre wise) and probably shouldn't be regarded as pure western, which is good thing because it doesn't have to restrict itself to all the overused themes. It therefore could only be regarded as an existentialistic neo-colonial piece of art, with Cohens words and music filling out the landscape with profound beauty.

Altman takes the Western genre and turns it on its head. Gone is the silent self-assured gunslinger, replaced by a man with more pretentions than sense, and a prostitute who is the most capable entrepenuer around. Gone are the open desolate plains, replaced with mountains, trees, mud, ice and snow. Through his naturalistic style, Altman is able to create a real sense of the misery and drudgery of the frontier life, and this only heightens the tragedy that unfolds before us.

"Like Thieves Like Us and The Long Goodbye, it feels too effortless and self-contained to actively read as an exercise in genre deconstruction." - Ed Gonzalez

When this gets going, in the bar and brothel milieu, or with the combative relationship between the eponymous pair, or in the haunting showdown, it's phenomenal. The dirty light is gorgeously captured, lending the town much of its remote character. I take issue with Altman's decision to alter McCabe's portrayal suddenly in conjunction with the reveal about his identity, but the shift is necessary to inject tension into the final sequence, a true classic despite the regrettable fake snow effects.

For once a truly unique western that explores and reinvents the genre. The village setting of snow, mud and wood combined with Leonard Cohen's wonderful debut album on the soundtrack creates a melancholic atmosphere that will stay with you for a long time.