Heaven's Gate

A visionary critique of American expansionism, Heaven’s Gate, directed by Oscar winner Michael Cimino (The Deer Hunter), is among Hollywood’s most ambitious and unorthodox epics. Kris Kristofferson (Lone Star) brings his weathered sensuality to the role of a Harvard graduate who has relocated all the way to Wyoming as a federal marshal; there, he learns of a government-sanctioned plot by rich cattle barons to kill the area’s European settlers for their land. The resulting skirmish is based on the real-life bloody Johnson County War of 1892. Also starring Isabelle Huppert and Christopher Walken, Heaven’s Gate is a savage and ravishingly shot demystification of western movie lore.