Ride the High Country (1962) poster
1962 · western

Ride the High Country

Directed by Sam Peckinpah1h 34m1962
ElsewhereIMDb7.415kRT89%Metacritic92TMDB7.1247
  • sombre
  • measured
  • intense
Movie DNA

Sombre, measured, measured western, grounded in texture. Ambivalent, mid-stakes, measured, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

An ex-lawman is hired to transport gold from a mining community through dangerous territory. But what he doesn't realize is that his partner and old friend is plotting to double-cross him.

Our read · Ride the High Country (1962) reads as a sombre, measured, grounded western entry — measured in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

Where the cast leads
Fingerprint

The shape of Ride the High Country

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want a classic western about aging honor, betrayal, and one last ride uphill.

ends bittersweetit stays with yousteady all the waygrips by minute 12attention 3/5breezes by
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upsexual violence

Skip it tonightSkip if old-west sexual menace and rough justice feel too uncomfortable tonight.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
Your take
Rate it
star-clip-1-0star-clip-2-0star-clip-3-0star-clip-4-0star-clip-5-0
React
Discussion

Discussion

cmd enter to post

What does your Movie DNA look like?

Rate a few films you've seen. We map your taste across the same twelve axes and find the films you'll actually want to watch tonight.

Calibrate yourself