The Rider

The Rider follows Brady Blackburn, a young cowboy and horse trainer in the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota who was a rising name in the rodeo circuit until a horse crushed his skull. Told by his doctor that he can no longer ride, Brady struggles with the loss of the work and freedom that gave his life meaning, and with the strain at home, where his father Wayne carries heavy burdens and his younger sister Lilly, who has Asperger's syndrome, needs his care. Unable to accept a life without horses, he sets out to work out who he can be and what manhood means in the American heartland.

Chloé Zhao directed and wrote the film, and produced it with Bert Hamelinck and Mollye Asher. It was her second feature, arriving after Songs My Brothers Taught Me and before Eternals, Nomadland and Hamnet. Its cast is drawn largely from the Lakota community around Pine Ridge, with Brady, Tim and Lilly Jandreau playing characters sharing their names, alongside Cat Clifford, Terri Dawn Pourier and Lane Scott.

The film runs 103 minutes. Its critics' rating of 8.4/10 from 191 reviews places it above the audience score on TMDB, where it holds 7.3/10 from 577 votes.