1989, USA, 360 min. (four 90-minute episodes)
In this classic miniseries, former Texas Rangers Augustus McRae (Robert Duvall) and Woodrow F. Call (Tommy Lee Jones) are whiling away their remaining years in Lonesome Dove, TX, a wisp of a town that features little more than dust and boredom. Then their old, rakish associate, Jake Spoon (Robert Urich) shows up. The future, he says, lies in verdant, unsettled Montana. Itchy for action, Call immediately organizes a cattle drive. The affable, silver-tongued Gus, forever devoted to the stoic Call, joins him. The dangerous trek is a last run at macho relevance for Call and a dip into nostalgia for McRae, but both men carry emotions that dwarf any frontier. The people who enter their lives—including a hapless Arkansas sheriff (Chris Cooper), an orphaned teenage farmhand (Rick Schroder) and a no-nonsense farm wife (Anjelica Huston), who once loved Gus—slowly and memorably showcase the duo’s vulnerability. Jones and Duvall are exceptional in this bittersweet meditation on mortality and the end of the Old West. Based on Larry McMurtry’s novel.
