X
In Theaters Now
- 2024
- R
- Warner Bros.
- 3 h 1 m
- 2024
- R
- Warner Bros.
- 3 h 1 m
Summary In the great tradition of Warner Bros. Pictures’ iconic Westerns, Horizon: An American Saga explores the lure of the Old West and how it was won—and lost—through the blood, sweat and tears of many. Spanning the four years of the Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, Costner’s ambitious cinematic adventure will take audiences on an emotional jou...
Directed By: Kevin Costner
Written By: Jon Baird, Kevin Costner, Mark Kasdan
In Theaters Now
- 2024
- R
- Warner Bros.
- 3 h 1 m
- 2024
- R
- Warner Bros.
- 3 h 1 m
Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1
48
6.5
Where to Watch
Summary In the great tradition of Warner Bros. Pictures’ iconic Westerns, Horizon: An American Saga explores the lure of the Old West and how it was won—and lost—through the blood, sweat and tears of many. Spanning the four years of the Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, Costner’s ambitious cinematic adventure will take audiences on an emotional jou...
Directed By: Kevin Costner
Written By: Jon Baird, Kevin Costner, Mark Kasdan
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 46 Critic Reviews
48
22% Positive
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
63% Mixed
29 Reviews
29 Reviews
15% Negative
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 46 Critic Reviews
48
22% Positive
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
63% Mixed
29 Reviews
29 Reviews
15% Negative
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
Chapter 1 of this undertaking is imperfect, at times meandering and once or twice confusing, but it is never boring and never feels over-long. And it is spectacularly beautiful to look at.
Costner and company know the importance of visual and sonic storytelling. In this film, the score, landscapes, and set pieces guide the stories along when the dialogue is limited, helping us to connect to the overall experience emotionally.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 48 User Ratings
6.5
63% Positive
30 Ratings
30 Ratings
13% Mixed
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
25% Negative
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 48 User Ratings
6.5
63% Positive
30 Ratings
30 Ratings
13% Mixed
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
25% Negative
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
Excellent movie. Action. Drama. Romance. A gritty re-telling of the hardships all our ancestors went through on their journey to build America. Diverse cultures and character types make watching this western an enriching experience.
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Absolutely loved this film.
#HorizonAnAmericanSaga is an awesome film.
Can't believe how the 3 hours flew by.
I wanted more.Nice build ups.
Great characters.
Excellent acting and performances.
Unexpected cameos. Dialogue that makes sense.
Ratchets up tension.
It's a film for grown ups, not TikTokers.
Can't wait for Part 2
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Horizon feels like the opening chapters of a grand novel patiently rolling into place, carefully delineating characters and offering telltale glimpses into their lives. It’s rich in period detail and filled with majestic vistas that seem to match the expanse of its story. But this can be a curse, too, at least while the film only exists as this one installment.
What’s strangest about this three-hour movie, though, is that despite some deadly slow patches, it still feels like an hour was cut from it, considering how characters develop off-screen. On more than one occasion, there are scenes that suggest deep and lasting relationships between people … that must have happened while the camera was somewhere else.
Working from a discursive screenplay he co-wrote with Jon Baird, Costner is not at his best as a director with this kind of multi-branched narrative. He struggles to keep all the story’s plates spinning, as characters are sidelined and resurface with too little connective tissue.
In some ways, Horizon reminded me of Costner’s 2003 western Open Range, but that had a much more interesting performance from Costner and first-rate support from Robert Duvall and Michael Gambon. The acting here is far less impressive, and less directed. There isn’t much on the horizon here.
The film is all table-setting, with the stories lacking in polish and dramatic momentum and the characters never developed beyond archetypes.
Good Movie - Slow to start yet doing a good job building up the characters. By the end of the movie, we wanted it to keep going like a good book or TV series. Anxious to see the 2nd part in August. With all the story lines coming together in part two, it should be explosive.
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Kevin Costner wrote, directed & stars in this 4-part epic about the settlement of the West in the 1860s. Chapter 2 is opening in August with the final ones due later. This first part starts with some confusing events that don't develop or even make sense til later in the narrative. Eventually, it's clear that it's following several groups of people in their often perilous adventure. Costner knows how to effectively tell a story, but that's the challenge…the story is confusing and the characters are too. In addition to lots of personal interactions, there are well-staged violent encounters with the inevitable cruel villains. The scenery is expectedly stunning and the final 5 minutes are basically a montage of what's coming in the second chapter, which promises even more big moments. Even so, at 3 hours it isn't likely to ever make it to the 4th chapter, primarily because it simply isn't that compelling.
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This movie had a lot of potential but it was wasted. Too many storylines, 4-6 at times and too many characters to follow. Kevin Costner is only in about 20-25% of the movie and is by no means the main character, just a character, then theres an unecessary 5 minute montage of clips previewing the next part at the end of an already long movie.
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A friend convinced me to watch this movie in exchange for a round of golf. The film turned out to be a sand trap, and I left after 90 minutes. Did it really need to exist in our Western film library? Did it offer any relevant or truthful experiences from that era?
This movie needs a hole-in-one to compensate for Kevin Costner's lost appeal among four primary audiences:
1) Women who adored the Yellowstone TV show and dropped him as swiftly as he divorced his wife, using his unfair power advantage to invalidate their 19-year marriage.
2) of Taylor Sheridan who saw Costner as an ungrateful bully to a producer that revived his slowing career.
3) Fans of Whitney Houston, who might have followed if there had been even a handful of Black cowboys, as there were during that time.
4) Fans of real women from that era who were tougher than cement and deserved to hear the authentic grit of their survival in their voice, dialogue, and carriage—not some male fantasy.
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Absolutely terrible. Dialogue, characters, jumping around, lighting, believability, music everything just bad bad bad. Saving grace was some pretty looking nature shots and that's about it. Left the theatre after 1.5 hours because I couldn't stand it anymore.
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Production Company
New Line Cinema,
Territory Pictures Entertainment,
Warner Bros.
Release Date Jun 28, 2024
Duration 3 h 1 m
Rating R
Tagline The story of a nation unsettled.