7. McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971) (Dir. Robert Altman)
Robert Altman was renowned for his overlapping, realistic dialogue cues and free-wheeling filmmaking style, none of which was put to better use than in his 1975 anti-western McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Described by late film critic Pauline Kael as “a great pipe dream of a movie” and by Roger Ebert as “perfect”, Altman’s best film tells the story of a “famous” gunslinger (Warren Beatty) who starts up a business in an Old Mining Town in the snow-drenched hills of Presbyterian Church, somewhere in the Northwestern United States. Altman resists all temptation to stick with the established rules of the genre, resulting in a sad, strange and ultimately haunting film that won’t fall out of your memory anytime soon. McCabe and Mrs. Miller is without a doubt the most accomplished revisionist western ever made – just like a photograph, it seems to somehow transcend all time and place.