20 Best Movies About Bounty Hunters of All Time
Bounty hunters are a very interesting topic to be covered in movies and there have indeed been extremely successful and brilliant movies about this topic, mostly set somewhere in the 19th century United States, often western dramas or crimes. But we have found a number of interesting titles about modern-day bounty hunters that haven’t maybe made it to a cult status but are still worth watching. They are fast-paced and action-packed and never lack excitement and interesting plot and characters. From Joel and Ethan Coen to Eastwood and Leone, this is the list of the 20 best movies about bounty hunters of all time.
Domino (2005)
Tony Scott directed this action thriller with Keira Knightley playing Domino Harvey, a girl who is bored with her life and completely uninterested in her parents’ way of living. She decides to turn away from her career as a Ford model and joins Ed Moseby’s team and becomes a bounty hunter.
At first, everything seems to be going well until she gets into trouble while Moseby and his crew are participating in a reality show and the mobster money is stolen from an armored truck. Things get even more out of control when the sons of a rival mobster are kidnapped while the FBI is monitoring two gangs of mobsters.
The Head Hunter (2018)
Thirst for blood and revenge is what drives the main character in this fantasy horror about a warrior who is determined to find and kill the monster who murdered his daughter. He is traveling through vast and wild expenses on his horse in search of the last head missing in his gruesome collection of heads.
A universal theme told in a simplistic way, through many action scenes, but with a lack of dialogue. The focus is on the main character and his struggle and urges to find the monster and get rid of him to find solace and satisfaction after this horrible event in his life.
Bounty Killer (2013)
This is a fun sci-fi action thriller about a number of headhunters called bounty killers who are determined to avenge the rich corporations, forming a new type of bounty hunter. These assassins differ in their traits and skills but all of them have the same goal, to kill, count the bodies and earn a great amount of money.
It has been 20 years since the government took over the world’s governments and bounty killers are the ones who want to get rid of these corporations by exterminating the CEOs and providing the survivors with retribution.
The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)
After meeting and getting to know him well in Pitch Black, this time we are following Riddick’s adventures in a new sci-fi movie. He is now a hunted man who finds himself between two forces on different sides, a warrior priest who is the leader of a sect, and an ambassador from the Elemental race.
Lord Marshal is a priest who is probably waging the final crusade five hundred years in the future and Aaron, as the ambassador helps Riddick unearth his origins. From a bounty hunter to prey, Riddick will have to pay attention to numerous obstacles while trying to find answers to all his questions.
The Rundown (2003)
Beck, a retrieval expert, and an ambitious restaurateur but he is also a daring bounty hunter is asked to bring home his boss’ daring son, Travis who is somewhere in the impenetrable Amazon jungle. But Beck is not the only one who wants to track Travis.
Upon his arrival in El Dorado, he realizes that Cornelius Hatcher, the local tyrant also wants to track down Travis who is the only one who knows where to find the exact location of a precious golden artifact. Hatcher and his henchmen are now after Travis and Beck and all of them are trying to retrieve this interesting statuette, hoping to make it out of the jungle alive.
Unforgiven (1992)
Clint Eastwood directed this brilliant western drama about Wyoming’s dangerous town of Big Whiskey and the interesting actions that took place there. It is the story of retribution sought by a disfigured prostitute and her co-workers want to find the men behind this gruesome crime. There is a bounty on the perpetrators’ heads decided by the town’s Sheriff “Little Bill” Dagget.
William Munny, a Kansas hog farmer embarks on a mission to find them, together with his group of sidekicks, his old partner-in-crime Ned Logan, and the young gunman “Schofield Kid”. Munny is aware that he is going back to his old ways when he was a famous outlaw but he knows that he is the only one responsible for his motherless children.
The Proposition (2005)
This interesting western crime drama written by the famous Australian composer Nick Cave is set in 1880 in the harsh and dangerous Australian outback where learn that the infamous Burns brothers are wanted for a horrible crime.
When Charlie Burns is caught and put in prison he will become the most important person, responsible for ending this vicious circle of crimes. The officer who arrested him makes a proposition that will put Charlie in an awkward situation. He must hunt his violent older brother Arthur in order to save his younger from hanging.
Midnight Run (1988)
Robert de Niro plays the leading role of bounty hunter Jack Walsh in this comedy crime thriller. He is faced with a new task of finding and returning Jonathan “The Duke” Mardukas, the former Mafia accountant. He must take him from New York to Los Angeles in order to have his 100 000 dollar fee.
But things won’t go as expected since the Mafia and the FBI have completely different plans, just like Marvin Dorfler, a rival bounty hunter. But they will also have a hard time catching Mardukas since he will form a strong bond and relationship with Walsh on their trip across the country.
The Magnificent Seven (1960)
One of the most famous westerns of all time and a movie with one of the greatest casts ever is this brilliant adventure drama about seven gunmen hired to watch and defend a small Mexican village that is every year terrorized by the same bandit.
The village elders send three of their farmers to the United States to try and find the ones who are ready to accept this task of fighting 30 bandits who will arrive in search of food. The group that arrives is one of the most legendary ever, starring Charles Bronson, Yil Brynner, and Steve McQueen, among many.
The Hateful Eight (2015)
Quentin Tarantino is a director you either love or can’t stand. But for the ones who love him, there is always great excitement when his movies come to the theatre. This excellent western thriller with a stellar cast is set somewhere in the time after the Civil War in a snowy Wyoming landscape. It tells the story of a bounty hunter named John Ruth who is traveling with his fugitive captive Daisy Domergue to the town of Red Rock where he is about to bring her to justice.
They are stopped by a blizzard and are forced to find shelter at Minnie’s Haberdashery where they meet a group of people, all with different reasons to go to Red Rock. But as the storm is growing stronger, they slowly realize that they might not make it there.
Django Unchained (2012)
One of Tarantino’s most famous movies is this brilliant western drama with two won Oscars, one for Christoph Waltz’s impeccable role and one for Tarantino’s excellent writing. Set in 1858 in Mississippi, it is a somewhat different story about slaves and their fight for freedom.
The movie talks about a bounty hunter named King Schultz who seeks the help of a slave Django. After Django helps him the two remain together in order to find Django’s wife Broomhilda. When they find out where she was taken, Django and Schultz come up with a plan for how to get close to the owner of the Mississippi-based plantation.
Mud (2012)
This is a difficult drama about two best friends who set out on an island on the Mississippi River where they find an unusual boat in the trees, full of food and fresh footprints. Soon they meet Mud, a superstitious man with dirty clothes, and befriend him, learning that he is on the run after killing a man in Texas, but his biggest concern is how to reunite with his longtime love Juniper.
This is more a movie about an individual who is trying to escape, than the bounty hunters looking for him but is still worth mentioning, due to a great story in general and brilliant performances by Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon.
Blade Runner (1982)
One of the movies where rain scenes have become one of the most iconic ever is this interesting sci-fi action drama, Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott about a blade runner who must terminate four replicants who stole a ship in space and return to Earth to find their creator.
These replicants who look and act like humans were created to aid society but soon they became illegal on Earth and were pursued by blade runners with a mission to terminate them if they ever decided to return there. We are following Rick Deckard, a retired blade runner who is asked to find these known replicants led by the dangerous Roy Batty.
True Grit (1969)
This western drama is set in 1880 Yell County, Arkansas and it tells the story of Mattie Ross who is riding to Fort Smith after her father’s murder. She wants to see his killer hanging sp she turns to the aging U.S. Marshall Reuben “Rooster” J. Cogburn for help.
He is a one-eyed lawman who is joined by the young Texas Ranger named La Boeuf who only wants to get ahold of the bounty money. The three of them embark on a dangerous journey to the Indian territory, having all odds against them but Mattie’s urge for revenge is stronger than the possible fear of getting caught and killed.
No Country for Old Men (2007)
This excellent Coen brothers’ crime drama takes us to rural Texas and introduces us to one of the most hideous serial killers since on big screens ever. Llewelyn Moss is a welder and hunter who discovers the remains of some drug runners who killed each other while having to exchange goods and money. He decides to run with the two million dollars left on the scene which immediately makes him the prey of a psychopathic killer Anton Chigurh.
He kills every rival who comes on his way in his pursuit of money and Moss will soon have to become more and more inventive to be one step ahead. On the other side, there is Sheriff Ed Tom Bell who has to oversee the investigation, at the same time struggling with a great number of crimes happening around them.
Raising Arizona (1987)
Nicholas Cage is H.I.McDonnough and Holly Hunter is Edwina and they make one of the most memorable movie couples ever in this hilarious brother Coen crime comedy. After getting married, McDonnough and Edwina find out they are unable to have a child.
Desperate for having a baby, they decide to kidnap one of the quintuplets of the furniture tycoon Nathan Arizona. After managing to do this, they are doing everything to keep it a secret, while their friends, co-workers, and a wild bounty hunter have other various ideas to use Nathan.
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966)
One of Sergio Leone’s greatest movies and biggest hits is this adventure western with Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach in leading roles. Eastwood is Blondie, The Good, a professional gunman who wants to earn a few dollars. Van Cleef is Angel Eyes, The Bad and he is a hitman and a true professional as long as he is paid.
And Wallach is Taco, The Ugly, a wanted outlaw who makes a partnership with Blondie after they find out about the gold hidden in a local cemetery. Their strange alliance will make them Angel Eyes’ adversaries since he is the one who knew about the gold but wasn’t aware of its whereabouts and now all of them want to get ahold of 200 000 000 worth of gold.
Dead Man (1995)
Johnny Depp plays William Blake, an accountant on the run after murdering a man. He encounters an American aboriginal man named Nobody who prepares him for entrance into the spiritual world. It is the late 1880s and Blake goes to the frontier community of Machine where a job awaits him.
After finding out there is no job, he is gravely wounded and finds himself on the run from the three bounty hunters. This is when he meets Nobody who is convinced that Blake is the reincarnation of the English poet of the same name.
The Predator (1987)
A somewhat different type of bounty hunter movie is this John McTiernan classic The Predator, about a creature from some other world that begins to hunt a team of special force ops. They are led by a tough soldier, Major “Dutch” Schaefer, and are ordered to assist Colonel Al Dillon on a rescue mission.
There might be potential survivors of a helicopter somewhere in the South American jungle but soon Dutch and his crew realize that they have been sent there under false pretenses that ends up being the least to be worried about since this is when the horror begins.
Ghost Rider (2007)
This is an interesting fantasy-action thriller about motorcyclist Johnny Blaze who sells his soul to the devil for the health of his father who is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Unfortunately, the devil deceives him and his father dies in a motorcycle accident.
Blaze decides to leave everyone and everything behind, including his girlfriend Roxanne and disappears for a few years. He returns as a famous motorcyclist, hopeful to continue where he left off with Roxanne. But it is obvious that there is something cursed in this town and Blaze is contacted by the devil once again. He offers him a deal to release his contract if he becomes the Ghost Rider and defeats his evil son Blackheart.
