The Misfits (1961)

Aging cowboys in Nevada, with no ranch work left, round up wild mustangs to sell for slaughter, and a woman fresh from her divorce in Reno sees what they cannot admit about it. Arthur Miller wrote the script for Marilyn Monroe, and John Huston shot it in the northern Nevada desert. It was the last completed film for both Clark Gable and Monroe, and Gable's roping scenes have the weight of a whole genre wearing out. Montgomery Clift's battered rodeo rider completes the trio. Choose it for the moment the cowboy myth meets the economics that replaced it; the mustang roundup is hard to watch and impossible to forget.