Lone Star (1996)

The thinking person's border western. When a skeleton turns up outside a Texas border town, Sheriff Sam Deeds, played by Chris Cooper, starts pulling at a decades-old killing and the legend of his own late father, also a lawman. John Sayles, whose script earned an Oscar nomination, weaves Anglo, Mexican American and Black families into one community whose history does not match the town's official version. Flashbacks slide into the present within a single shot, so past and present share the frame. It is talky and patient, and the payoff rewards that patience.