Do you think

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I rank Peckinpah's work like this:

1. The Wild Bunch
2. Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
3. Tied between Major Dundee and Cross of Iron
4. Tied between The Getaway and The Ballad of Cable Hogue
5. Tied between Jr. Bonner and The Killer Elite
6. Tied between Ride the High Country and The Deadly Companions
7. Convoy
8. The Osterman Weekend

Kind of pressed for time right now, but I can explain my choices later.

The thing to remember about The Wild Bunch is that Peckinpah -- through some sort of sheer miraculous luck -- had a Warner Brothers head honcho who just LOVED all the early dallies he saw, was sure that The Wild Bunch would be a classic and therefore...gave Peckinpah all the time and money to make a movie without compromise. That final gunbattle was given weeks to film, all the fake ammo necessary(they kept running out and replenishing), carefully touched up costumes put back on the victims, etc.

Peckinpah was never given that kind of budget or freedom (or time) again, and so movies like The Getaway come out looking "second best." For instance, compare the final gunfight in the hotel in The Getaway to the one in The Wild Bunch. The Getaway shoot out is pretty good, but not nearly as long or detailed as the one in The Wild Bunch.

Peckinpah's demons with drink and drugs -- there on The Wild Bunch but not uncontrollably so -- would increase with each movie and I think the "quality control" diminished. One of his later films -- The Killer Elite -- seems to show off his alcohol abuse on the screen -- scenes are messy, mismatched, drift away.

So:

The Wild Bunch IS Peckinpah's best movie.

As for the others? A matter of taste. All MacGraw rather hurts The Getaway.

Peckinpah's early film, Ride the High Country, is a very moving film about two aging gunmen(Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea) which has some perverse elements(a young bride finds her hillbilly husband offering her up to all the men in his family for sex; our aging heroes intervene) and some quick-cut gunfire that anticipates The Wild Bunch. The ending is beautiful to look at and very sad.

I would put "Ride the High Country" second to The Wild Bunch, and a few more before reaching The Getaway.

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