Dead Man

For his 1995 take on classic Hollywood Westerns, Jim Jarmusch brought together the diverse talents of Johnny Depp and Gary Farmer in starring roles, as well as Crispin Glover, Iggy Pop, Robert Mitchum (in his final film role), Billy Bob Thornton, Gabriel Byrne, John Hurt, and Alfred Molina. The film tells the story of William Blake, an accountant from Cleveland who sets out to the town of Machine for work, a misadventure that soon turns him into an outlaw. Set to an eerie, improvised soundtrack by Neil Young, Dead Man constitutes a physical and mythical journey that ends as it begins. The film has attracted favorable critical reviews, with author and critic Greil Marcus calling it “the best movie of the end of the 20th century” and The New York Times’ A.O. Scott describing it as “one of the very best movies of the 1990s.”