True Grit
Movie, 2010, The 2010s, Set in Indian Territory
True Grit is #15 of 21 in release order and #15 of 21 in chronological order in the The Coen Brothers.
The story
Following the murder of her father by a hired hand, a 14-year-old farm girl sets out to capture the killer. To aid her, she hires the toughest U.S. Marshal she can find—a man with 'true grit'—Reuben J. 'Rooster' Cogburn.
True Grit recap
True Grit (2010) follows a 14-year-old girl who hires a drunken one-eyed marshal to track her father's killer into Indian Territory. In 1878, Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) arrives in Fort Smith, Arkansas, to settle her father's affairs after the hired hand Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) shot him and fled to join the outlaw gang of "Lucky" Ned Pepper (Barry Pepper). She hires Deputy U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), raising the fee by hard bargaining over horses. Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (Matt Damon) wants Chaney for killing a senator and teams up with Cogburn, but Mattie insists on riding along and on Chaney hanging in Arkansas. The three quarrel, split and regroup across the wilderness. The Coens adapted Charles Portis's 1968 novel more faithfully than the 1969 John Wayne film. Their fifteenth feature, it follows A Serious Man and earned ten Oscar nominations.
True Grit ending explained
True Grit ends with Mattie, an adult with one arm, burying Cogburn in her family plot. Chaney takes her hostage by a stream; Cogburn charges four of Pepper's men alone, LaBoeuf shoots Pepper from far away, and Mattie kills Chaney with the rifle. The recoil throws her into a pit of rattlesnakes, and Cogburn rides her horse to death and carries her to a doctor, but her bitten arm is amputated. Twenty-five years later she goes to meet him at a Wild West show and finds he died days earlier.
Post-credits scenes
No. True Grit has no mid- or post-credits scene.
Where to watch True Grit
True Grit is streaming on fuboTV, Paramount+, Kanopy, Hoopla, and Pluto TV in the US. You can rent or buy it on Amazon, Apple TV, and Google Play.
Ratings
IMDb 7.6/10, Rotten Tomatoes 95%
Where it fits
- Release order: after A Serious Man, before Inside Llewyn Davis.
- Chronological order: after A Serious Man, before Inside Llewyn Davis.
Cast
- Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn
- Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross
- Matt Damon as LaBoeuf
- Josh Brolin as Tom Chaney
- Barry Pepper as Lucky Ned Pepper
- Dakin Matthews as Col. Stonehill
- Jarlath Conroy as Undertaker
- Paul Rae as Emmett Quincy
- Domhnall Gleeson as Moon (The Kid)
- Elizabeth Marvel as 40-Year-Old Mattie
- Roy Lee Jones as Yarnell
- Ed Corbin as Bear Man
Directed by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen.