Best New mexico Movies
Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of new mexico cinema — measured across 677 indexed frames from 11 films, against a 408,752-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.
New mexico films over-index on cowboy hat, mountain and dirt — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.
- 1
Ace In The Hole (1951)
Billy WilderDP Charles LangIMDb 8.1TMDB 7.9See in full on FrameThrower →
Charles Tatum, a down-on-his-luck reporter, takes a job with a small New Mexico newspaper. The job is pretty boring until he finds a man trapped in an old Indian dwelling. He jumps at the chance to make a name for himself by taking over and prolonging the rescue effort, and feeding stories to major newspapers. He creates a national media sensation and milks it for all it is worth - until things go terribly wrong.
- 2
John FordDP Winton C. HochIMDb 7.8TMDB 7.7See in full on FrameThrower →
After a long three-year absence, the battle-scarred Confederate veteran of the American Civil War, Ethan Edwards turns up on the remote and dusty Texan homestead of his brother, Aaron. In high hopes of finding peace, instead, the taciturn former soldier will embark on a treacherous five-year odyssey of retribution, when the ruthless Chief Scar's murderous Comanche raiding party massacres his family, burns the ranch to the ground, and abducts his nine-year-old niece, Debbie. Driven by hatred of Indians, Ethan and his young companion, Martin Pawley, ride through the unforgiving desert to track down their lost Debbie; however, is the woman they lost and the prisoner in Scar's teepee still the same woman the searchers seek?
- 3
The Hills Have Eyes (2006)
Alexandre AjaDP Maxime AlexandreIMDb 6.4TMDB 6.5See in full on FrameThrower →
While celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary, a couple are traveling through the desert with their 3 children, son in law and their baby granddaughter. While the rest of the family agrees there are plenty of better and more appropriate things to do to celebrate an anniversary, they make do with what they have, but things take a turn after a sketchy gas station attendant informs them about a "short cut" that will take them in between a series of hills in the desert. It doesn't take too long before they realize they're not alone and the hills indeed do have eyes.
- 4
Captain Fantastic (2016)
Matt RossDP Stéphane FontaineIMDb 7.8TMDB 7.9See in full on FrameThrower →
Ben and Leslie Cash live largely off the grid with their offspring -- Bodevan, Kielyr, Vespyr, Rellian, Zaja and Nai -- in a cabin in the mountains of Washington state. The parents have passed their socialist and survivalist ideals to their children. Ben considers most of Western society to be fascist, especially corporate America. He also believes that no one will or should be there for you, so you'd better learn how to take care of yourself. As such, the children have been subject to vigorous physical training; know how to deal with minor bumps, bruises, cuts, sprains, and even fractures; and know how to hunt, forage, and grow their own food. The children are also non-registered home schooled, meaning that they have no official academic records. Ben and Leslie have tried to make the children critical thinkers, however, within the context of their ideals. Beyond these issues, Ben and Leslie made the decision to live this lifestyle for Leslie's health. Formerly an attorney, Leslie was diagnosed as bipolar. Ben believes that this disorder started with her postpartum depression with Bo. Yet Leslie's condition has worsened. Despite not believing in Western medicine, Ben sends Leslie to a hospital close to Ben's sister, Harper, so that there can be family close by. While hospitalized, Leslie commits suicide. Beyond the collective grief, Leslie's act brings out a battle between Ben and Leslie's father, Jack Bertrang, a Christian who not only blames Ben for Leslie's death, but believes that what he is doing "to" the children can legally be considered abuse. Jack takes over the funeral arrangements as per his and his complacent wife Abby's Christian morals, against what Ben knows was Leslie's wishes, as she believed in Buddhist philosophies. Although Jack threatens to call the police if Ben shows up to the funeral, Ben and the children believe it is their mission to honor Leslie's last wishes to be cremated as per Buddhist philosophy. This mission not only may bring the divide between Jack and Ben to a head, but may also bring out some long dormant issues between the Cash children as they are exposed to commercial America in all its good and bad, and as Bo grows into manhood, he may have his own ideas of what he should do with the next phase of his life.
- 5
Oppenheimer (2023)
Christopher NolanDP Hoyte van HoytemaIMDb 8.2TMDB 8.0See in full on FrameThrower →
A dramatization of the life story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who had a large hand in the development of the atomic bomb, thus helping end World War 2. We see his life from university days all the way to post-WW2, where his fame saw him embroiled in political machinations.
- 6
Contact (1997)
Robert ZemeckisDP Don BurgessIMDb 7.5TMDB 7.4See in full on FrameThrower →
Astronomer Dr. Ellie Arroway has long been interested in contact to faraway lands, a love fostered in her childhood by her father, Ted Arroway (David Morse), who died when she was nine-years-old, leaving her orphaned. Her current work in monitoring for extraterrestrial life is based on that love and is in part an homage to her father. Ever since funding from the National Science Foundation (N.S.F.) was pulled on her work, which is referred to some, including her N.S.F. superior David Drumlin (Tom Skerritt), as more science fiction than science, Ellie, with a few of her rogue scientist colleagues, have looked for funding from where ever they could get it to continue their work. When Ellie and her colleagues hear chatter originating from the vicinity of the star Vega, Ellie feels vindicated. But that vindication is short lived when others, including politicians, the military, religious leaders, and other scientists, such as Drumlin, try to take over her work. When the messages received from space are decoded, the project takes on a whole new dimension, which strengthens for Ellie the quest for the truth. Thrown into the mix are the unknown person who has up until now funded most of Ellie's work and what his motivations are, and Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey), a renowned author and theologian, who despite their fundamental differences in outlook, is mutually attracted to Ellie, that attraction based in part on intellect and their common goal of wanting to know the truth.
- 7
The Vast of Night (2019)
Andrew PattersonDP M.I. Littin-MenzIMDb 6.7TMDB 6.5See in full on FrameThrower →
At the dawn of the space-race, two radio-obsessed teens discover a strange frequency over the airwaves in what becomes the most important night of their lives and in the history of their small town.
- 8
Thor (2011)
Kenneth BranaghDP Haris ZambarloukosIMDb 7.0TMDB 6.8See in full on FrameThrower →
The warrior Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is cast out of the fantastic realm of Asgard by his father Odin (Sir Anthony Hopkins) for his arrogance and sent to Earth to live amongst humans. Falling in love with scientist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) teaches Thor much-needed lessons, and his new-found strength comes into play as a villain from his homeland sends dark forces toward Earth.
What new mexico films are made of
How much more often each element appears in a new mexico frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — cowboy hat is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.
- cowboy hat6.0×
- mountain4.6×
- dirt3.9×
- tie2.3×
- car1.8×
- glasses1.5×
- suit jacket1.5×
How new mexico films are shot
Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate new mexico from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.
- 29%widevs 20% baseline
What breaks the pattern
21 Grams (2003) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.
Method
Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 677 frames from 11 films carrying the new mexico label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (408,752 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.
Machine-readable: /api/list/new-mexico
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