Published Jul 7, 2026, 12:00 PM EDT
In over three years at Collider, senior author Jake has now penned over 3000 articles covering a wide range of TV and film for the resources, lists, utilities, news, and interview teams. Alongside interviewing stars such as Selin Hizli, Rose Ayling-Ellis, Harlan Coben, and Chelsea Peretti, Jake was lucky enough to visit the set of Aardman and Netflix’s Wallace and Gromit: A Vengeance Most Fowl in 2024, getting the chance to chat with four-time Academy Award winner Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham. Jake has also worked for other publications, including Agents of Fandom. You can also hear Jake every week as the resident film and TV journalist on Track Radio.
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When thinking of the most famous names in Western movie history, you might first think of John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Henry Fonda, or James Stewart. The modern equivalent of the great stars of yesteryear is Kevin Costner, known as the face of many beloved Western projects, including John Dutton in Taylor Sheridan’s hugely popular Yellowstone, Charley Waite in Open Range, and more. Although his time in *Yellowstone *might’ve ended in controversy, it doesn’t change the fact that Costner is the face of the genre for a new generation of fans.
But of his many performances in the genre, nothing can top Dances with Wolves, a film that stood tall during a turbulent time for Westerns when studios started seeing the genre as obsolete and became a huge commercial and critical success. At the box office, against a reported budget of just $19 million, Costner’s three-hour epic returned an enormous $424 million, split between a domestic haul of $184 million and a further $240 million from overseas markets. At the time, the film broke the record for highest-grossing Western ever, a feat only eclipsed once since, courtesy of a $450 million run for Django Unchained, which was written and directed by Quentin Tarantino.
Not just a hit in theaters, *Dances with Wolves *also wowed critics, earning universal praise and making a huge splash during awards season. This was most evident at the March 1991 Academy Awards, where the film earned an eye-watering 12 nominations. Of these 12, *Dances with Wolves *won 7, including victories in the likes of Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and more.
The show that claimed the most of your answers is the world you were built for. If two tied, both are shown — you’re complicated enough to straddle two Sheridan universes.
You are a Dutton — or you might as well be. You understand that some things are worth protecting at any cost, and that the modern world’s indifference to history, to land, to legacy, is not something you’re willing to accept quietly. You lead from the front, you carry your family’s weight without complaint, and when someone threatens what’s yours, you don’t escalate — you finish it. You’re not cruel. But you are absolute. In Yellowstone’s world, that combination of ferocity and loyalty doesn’t make you a villain. It makes you the only thing standing between everything that matters and everyone who wants to take it.
You thrive in the chaos of high-stakes negotiation, where the money is enormous, the margins are thin, and the wrong word in the wrong room can cost everyone everything. You’re a fixer — the person called when a situation is already on fire and needs someone with the nerve to walk into it. West Texas oil country rewards exactly what you are: sharp, adaptable, unsentimental, and absolutely clear-eyed about what people want and what they’ll do to get it. You’re not naive enough to think this world is fair. You’re smart enough to be the one deciding who it’s fair to.
You are a Dwight Manfredi — someone who has served their time, paid their dues, and arrived somewhere unexpected with nothing but their reputation and their wits. You adapt without losing yourself. You build loyalty through respect rather than fear, though you’re not above reminding people that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Tulsa King is for people who are still standing when everyone assumed they’d be finished — who find, in an unfamiliar place, that they’re more capable than the world gave them credit for. You don’t need a throne. You build one, wherever you happen to land.
You carry the weight of a system that is broken by design, and you do it anyway — because someone has to, and because you’re the only one positioned to do it without the whole thing collapsing. Mike McLusky’s world is for people who are comfortable operating where there are no good options, only less catastrophic ones. You speak every language: law enforcement, criminal, political, human. That fluency makes you invaluable and it makes you a target. You’ve made your peace with both. Mayor of Kingstown belongs to people who understand that keeping the peace is not the same as being at peace — and who do the job regardless.
36 years after it dominated film discourse, Dances with Wolves is making a return, courtesy of a new 4K restoration **that will launch at the upcoming Locarno Film Festival. On August 7, this special nearly four-hour extended edition, which features over half an hour of previously unseen additional material, will premiere on the giant screen of the Swiss lakeside fest’s large outdoor Piazza Grande venue as part of its Histoire(s) du Cinema section. In a statement, the festival said:
“Costner’s Western epic, which won seven Academy Awards, including best picture and best director, helped redefine the western at the turn of the 1990s and drew global attention to the historical plight of Indigenous peoples on the American continent.”
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