Kirk Ellis 
Ride Lonesome 

Ride Lonesome, the fifth film in the “Ranown cycle, ” is both the best and most representative of the whole series, which has been called “the most remarkable convergence of artistic achievement in the history of low-budget moviemaking.” Director Bud Boetticher captures the alienation and loneliness of an America faced with the Cold War and the daily threat of nuclear annihilation. Shot in seventeen days for under a half-million dollars,
Ride Lonesome is a masterpiece of cinematic minimalism.


Veteran screenwriter Kirk Ellis brilliantly unpacks the themes, narrative, visual language, and editing in this seminal film. In
Ride Lonesome Ellis not only shows how this one film embodies a turning point for the Western, but he also explores the unique vision and contributions of director Boetticher and his writing partner Burt Kennedy.

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Kirk Ellis is a two-time Emmy Award and two-time Humanitas Prize–winning writer/producer who wrote and produced the acclaimed event series John Adams. Among his many other credits are the Emmy-nominated Into the West and the Emmy Award–winning Anne Frank: The Whole Story. Formerly cogovernor of the writers’ branch of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and past president of the Western Writers of America, Ellis splits his time between Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Palm Springs, California.