Gordon T. Dawson

An aging group of outlaws look for one last big score as the "traditional" American West is disappearing around them.

An account of the life and work of American film director Sam Peckinpah (1925-84), a tortured artist whose genius and inner demons changed the Western genre forever.

Portrayal of a talented, influencial and troubled artist: a filmmaker who fought his own demons and seemed to live his own legend like no other director. Against all odds Sam Peckinpah was able to create a very personal body of work in the studio system of Hollywood and with his powerful directing and editing style changed the way of filmmaking forever. Legendary for his use of slow-motion violence, various scandals and his ongoing problems with sudios and producers, the story of Peckinpah is filled with tragedy, humor, success and defeat.

This straight-talking program seeks to understand the enigmatic and controversial Sam Peckinpah, whose violent films such as The Wild Bunch and Straw Dogs had a telling effect on the cinema of the 1970s and 80s. Those who knew and worked with him, including actor James Coburn, actress Ali MacGraw, his associate Katherine Haber, his cousin Bob Peckinpah, and several screenwriters and producers, examine his life in an attempt to separate the man from the persona. Clips from key films reinforce this detailed discussion of Peckinpah's art and a fixation on violence that still permeates Hollywood today.

A documentary about the making of Sam Peckinpah's last western, "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" (1973).

A documentary crew returns to the shooting locations of Sam Peckinpah's legendary western to reflect on the film and the way it impacted their lives.

A documentary about the making of Sam Peckinpah's 1972 classic film The Getaway.

A new documentary about Sam Peckinpah's 1974 film 'Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia'.

Double-crossed and left without water in the desert, Cable Hogue is saved when he finds a spring. It is in just the right spot for a much needed rest stop on the local stagecoach line, and Hogue uses this to his advantage. He builds a house and makes money off the stagecoach passengers. Hildy, a prostitute from the nearest town, moves in with him. Hogue has everything going his way until the advent of the automobile ends the era of the stagecoach.

An American bartender and his prostitute girlfriend go on a road trip through the Mexican underworld to collect a $1 million bounty on the head of a dead gigolo.

An outlaw band flees a posse and rides into Refuge, a small town where no one carries a gun, drinks, or swears. The town is actually Purgatory, and the peaceful inhabitants are all famous dead outlaws and criminals such as Doc Holiday and Wild Bill Hickok who must redeem themselves before gaining admittance to Heaven... or screw up and go to Hell.

A dedicated sheriff in the 1880s who, after his first family is ravaged by a gang of renegades, gets a chance for revenge years later when the same outlaws threaten his new family and the frontier town he single handedly tamed.