Latest The homesman Stories

Apparently the Western is dead. But these 10 classics from the last 20 years would probably disagree.

This is Jones' second film as a director, and he's lined up a helluva cast. In addition to him and two-time Oscar winner Swank, he's got Grace Gummer, Miranda Otto and Sonja Richter as the three troubled women. Beyond that, things get real loaded: John Lithgow, Tim Blake Nelson, William Fichtner, Jesse Plemons and Ultron himself James Spader are onboard.

The festival will open with Olivier Dahan's Grace Of Monaco, though there's no shortage of auteirist works as well. Former Grand Prix winner Atom Egoyan returns with Ryan Reynolds-starrer The Captive while Jean-Luc Godard presents his newest late-career project, the winkingly-titled Goodbye To Language, which will be presented in 3D.

Actress Hailee Steinfeld got her big breakthrough role in a western, earning an Academy Award nomination starring alongside Jeff Bridges in the Coen brothers' True Grit, and now she's set to make her return to the genre with a role in Tommy Lee Jones' new directorial effort The Homesman.

Set in 1855 Nebraska, the story follows a pioneer woman and a claims-jumper who are tasked with transporting three women driven insane by the frontier back to Iowa. The trade notes that Spader's role is being kept a secret for now, but describes the part as "a swindler."

Tommy Lee Jones was just seen alongside Meryl Streep this past summer in the David Frankel-directed dramedy Hope Springs, and apparently they enjoyed working together so much that they're already thinking about pairing up again. New reports have surfaced saying that both Streep and Hilary Swank are now both attached to The Homesman, the new film that Jones is set to star in, write, direct, and produce.

Jones has been honing his craft behind the camera. He directed the moving Western The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada in 2005, and moved to a TV movie called The Sunset Limited in 2011. It doesn’t sound like he’s picking up any green-screen tricks from his Men In Black director Barry Sonnenfeld for these efforts. Jones, a Texan, favors throwback dramas with grit and personal pain. Homesman fits that mold.