Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 4K 2024 Ultra HD 2160p

In the great tradition of Warner Bros. Pictures’ iconic Westerns, Horizon: An American Saga explores the lure of the Old West and how it was won—and lost—through the blood, sweat and tears of many. Spanning the four years of the Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, Costner’s ambitious cinematic adventure will take audiences on an emotional journey across a country at war with itself, experienced through the lens of families, friends and foes all attempting to discover what it truly means to be the United States of America.

User Review
Anyone keen on a sweeping epic of the western variety will want to see Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1, which opened in theatres this week.

No fan of the genre would consider seeing something like this anywhere but on the big screen.

Why Warner Bros. Canada didn’t screen the film in advance for critics remains a mystery.

Co-written and directed by Kevin Costner (who is also part of a large ensemble cast), the three-hour drama about the settlement of the American west is a satisfying intro to a handful of characters — some settlers, some Indigenous — with the cinematic promise of more to come.

The film opens in 1859 with a couple of settlers surveying land in the San Pedro Valley. Indigenous children watch the surveyors from afar. Soon enough, Apache adults join them in observing the interlopers.

A benign enough beginning quickly leaps into violence and death, and a new town is decimated by an Apache attack at nightfall. The settlers have gathered for a dance and a get-together, and they are slaughtered by the attacking warriors, their temporary tent homes set on fire.

When the massacre ends, some of the survivors — a woman named Frances (Sienna Miller) and her daughter among them — decide to leave the area with Lieutenant Trent Gephart (Sam Worthington) and go to a nearby fort for protection.

Another survivor, an adolescent boy, takes a different route. He becomes part of a violent group seeking revenge against the Apache and any other tribe.

Later, the young leader of the Apache attack, Pionsenay (Owen Crow Shoe), argues with his father Tuayeseh (Gregory Cruz), an elder who disapproves of his son’s actions. Thousands more will follow the settlers who were killed, Tuayeseh advises, and now, “You have made them your enemy.”

In Wyoming territory, another story thread begins when Kevin Costner rides into the narrative, unwittingly getting himself mixed up with a family feud involving the desperado Sykes clan.

Costner plays Hayes Ellison, an enigmatic horse trader whose rendezvous with a local prostitute named Marigold (Abbey Lee) puts him by chance in the crosshairs of Caleb Sykes (Jamie Campbell Bower). Sykes is a killer going to visit that same prostitute, but for a different reason: to retrieve the child in her care.

Much gunplay later, Marigold, the toddler and Hayes Ellison are on the run together.

Somewhere in here, Danny Huston turns up as a Colonel who understands how and why wagons full of settlers will continue to make their way west. Luke Wilson and Will Patton are part of this same story line, riding with a huge wagon train making its way west through difficult and often hostile terrain.

Horizon — although a metaphor, obviously — is presented in the film as a newly created (and vaguely mythical) settlement of many thousands of acres, land that will attract ambitious men and women eager to stake a claim in the west, regardless of who might be displaced in their pursuit.

Chapter 1 of this undertaking is imperfect, at times meandering and once or twice confusing, but it is never boring and never feels over-long. And it is spectacularly beautiful to look at.

The film owes much to director of photography J. Michael Muro, who keeps the awe level high, visually speaking. Anyone interested in the era and this type of old-fashioned storytelling — we mean that in the best way — will not be disappointed.

Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1. Directed by Kevin Costner, written by Jon Baird, Kevin Costner, and Mark Kasdan. Starring Kevin Costner, Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington, Jena Malone, Owen Crow Shoe, and Will Patton. In theatres now. Chapter 2 in theatres August 16.

Info Video

Codec: HEVC / H.265 (56.5 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10+
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Info Audio

#English: Dolby TrueHD with Dolby Atmos 7.1 (48kHz, 16-bit)
#English: Dolby Digital Plus with Dolby Atmos 5.1
#French: Dolby Digital 5.1
#Italian: Dolby Digital 5.1
#Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1

Info Subtitles

English SDH, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch.