All 6 Cormac McCarthy Movies, Ranked (original) (raw)
Image via Paramount Pictures
Published Nov 6, 2024, 5:02 PM EST
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Cormac McCarthy was one of the most important American writers of the 20th century, and of the 21st century so far. It wasn’t until the 2000s that he became something of a household name outside the world of literature, thanks to some high-profile adaptations of his later works. His writing style was distinctive, blunt, and rather powerful in its own unique way… difficult to adapt to film, too, but some filmmakers managed to do McCarthy’s work justice, even if it meant some deviations from the source material.
The coldness, sparseness, and brutality of some Cormac McCarthy stories do contribute to that notion of difficult adaptability (it’s possibly affecting _Blood Meridian_’s chances at getting a film adaptation), but when filmmakers make it work, cinematic gold can ensue. The following movies – ranked from worst to best – are all either based on McCarthy’s novels, or have screenplays that were written by McCarthy himself. The only title excluded is 1977’s The Gardener's Son, which exists as an episode of an anthology series called Visions (there is one other standalone – and less obscure – TV movie that is included here).
6 'Child of God' (2013)
Director: James Franco
Image via Spotlight Pictures
Child of God is the earliest novel by Cormac McCarthy to have gotten a movie adaptation to date, but it’s sadly probably the weakest film with the legendary writer’s name attached to it, too. The book was published in 1973, and the film came out exactly 40 years later, and the former is a much more effective exploration of difficult subject matter than the latter. The novel works as something of a distinctive piece of horror, while the film is definable more as a slightly generic crime drama.
The uneasy magic of McCarthy’s prose is lost here, with the premise – about a violent outsider of a man continuing to become more of a killer as his disillusionment with the world grows – being the same in both, but the execution is just off. Additionally, the film changes the book’s ending, and not for the better. Much of the blame can be laid at the feet of director James Franco, who also stars in this, and has continually tried to become a director but hasn’t found much by way of critical success, to say the least (outside The Disaster Artist). Perhaps it’s for the best that nothing really came of his attempt to adapt Blood Meridian, outside approximately half an hour of test footage.
Child of God
5 'All the Pretty Horses' (2000)
Director: Billy Bob Thornton
Image via Miramax Films
Billy Bob Thornton is much more well-known for his acting than his directing, though he had a more-than-solid directorial debut in 1996, with Sling Blade, a rather impactful drama he also starred in. His follow-up effort, All the Pretty Horses, is significant for being the first major film adaptation of a Cormac McCarthy story, but it wasn’t a great one. At least it stands apart from most typical McCarthy works, as All the Pretty Horses isn't as intense or violent as some of the better-known McCarthy stories, instead being something of a romance.
Well, romance plays a part, because All the Pretty Horses is also a character drama and a Western (though one set during the 20th century, rather than the 1800s). It’s not a total misfire, but it doesn’t really work as well on screen compared to its novel form (executive meddling probably didn't help it). Additionally, it’s beneficial to read All the Pretty Horses rather than watch it because the book is the first entry in what became known as The Border Trilogy, whereas the film version stands alone.
4 'The Counselor' (2013)
Director: Ridley Scott
Of the Cormac McCarthy movies with screenplays written by the man himself, The Counselor is the only one that was an entirely new idea, written exclusively for the format of film. It retains the sort of feeling one gets within the writer’s novels, being a bitter, cynical, violent, and unusually paced crime movie. It was directed by Ridley Scott, though it doesn’t feel as though it matches his sensibilities as a filmmaker all that well, making for a film that could charitably be called “off-kilter.”
It takes place in and around the Mexican drug trade and related conflicts, with the plot broadly definable as being about a lawyer getting into trouble when he gets involved with drug trafficking in the area. Overall, though, The Counselor is a good deal more convoluted than that, with an abundance of characters and a sense of things sometimes being sluggish, but also progressing too fast at other points. It’s unrelentingly bleak and bloody, and some of it’s admittedly memorable, but a good chunk of it misses the mark. It’s an interesting film, to some extent, but also an occasionally frustrating one.
Release Date
November 14, 2013
Runtime
117minutes
Director
3 'The Sunset Limited' (2011)
Director: Tommy Lee Jones
Image via HBO Films
Like Child of God and All the Pretty Horses, The Sunset Limited was directed by someone best known for being an actor: Tommy Lee Jones. Like The Counselor, Cormac McCarthy was the writer of the screenplay here, though The Sunset Limited saw him adapting his pre-existing play of the same name to the screen. Not a great deal had to be changed, owing to both the play and the movie being self-contained and rather small in scale, with the premise here centered on two men having a passionate conversation about faith, philosophy, and despair while sitting in the one room.
This makes The Sunset Limited function like a bottle movie, and it’s a pretty good one overall. It helps that the two actors featured are Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson, with it being a pleasure to see two seasoned actors of their caliber trading dialogue for an hour and a half. The film can be grim, owing to the heavy themes it explores, but the entire thing works well for something so stripped-back and simple. It may be a TV movie, but the premise and focus on dialogue means it doesn’t exactly need high production value to be a compelling watch.
2 'The Road' (2009)
Director: John Hillcoat
Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee in The Road
Image via Dimension Films
There’s a particularly strong sense of bleakness to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, which was published as a novel three years before it was adapted to film. It feels particularly realistic and despairing in its depiction of a post-apocalyptic world, centering on a father and his son who are both trying to survive in such a hopeless wasteland. It’s post-apocalyptic fiction broken down to its bare essentials, with simple, striking prose and two main characters who aren’t given names, instead being referred to as “the man” and “the boy.”
The film keeps things as blunt and simple as it can, though the minimalist approach does ultimately feel a little less minimal when things become more than just the written word. Still, The Road does a good job of capturing the desolate and dread-heavy feel of its source material, feeling appropriately challenging to watch. Also, the film’s director, John Hillcoat, is one of the people who’s expressed interest in doing a Blood Meridian film (and he remains probably the best option, at least out of anyone who’s suggested a desire to do it).
1 'No Country for Old Men' (2007)
Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Javiar Bardem as Anton Chigurh talking to a store owner in No Country For Old Men
Image via Paramount Pictures
To date, it’s probably the Coen Brothers who've proven themselves most capable of handling and adapting Cormac McCarthy’s unique style through adapting his work, seeing as No Country for Old Men stands tall above the previously mentioned films. This is a fantastically well-acted crime thriller that is bold, brutal, and unapologetic without ever feeling unsatisfying or frustrating (well, the ending is jarring at first, but it makes a ton of sense once you sit with it for a bit).
At the heart of No Country for Old Men is an all-time great villain, too, in the form of Anton Chigurh, who works fantastically as a fearsome and near-unstoppable killer both on the page and on the screen. No Country for Old Men barrels forward without ever feeling rushed, nailing things from a pacing perspective and maintaining the impact of the source material’s most shocking moments. It does everything right as far as adaptations go, making No Country for Old Men the kind of story where you can’t go wrong, regardless of which version you choose (be it book or movie).
Release Date
November 21, 2007
Runtime
122 minutes
Director
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen