Directed by Alex Cox • 1987 • United States
Starring Ed Harris, Peter Boyle, Marlee Matlin
A hallucinatory biopic that breaks all cinematic conventions, WALKER, from British director Alex Cox, tells the story of nineteenth-century American adventurer William Walker (Ed Harris), who abandoned a series of careers in law, politics, journalism, and medicine to become a soldier of fortune and, for many months, the dictator of Nicaragua. Made with mad abandon and political acuity—and the support of the Sandinista army and government during the contra war—the film uses this true tale as a satirical attack on American ultrapatriotism and a freewheeling condemnation of “manifest destiny.” Featuring a powerful score by Joe Strummer and a performance of intense, repressed rage by Harris, WALKER remains one of Cox’s most daring works.
Up Next in Directed by Alex Cox
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Repo Man
Directed by Alex Cox • 1984 • United States
Starring Harry Dean Stanton, Emilio Estevez, Tracey WalterA quintessential cult film of the 1980s, Alex Cox’s singular sci-fi comedy stars the always captivating Harry Dean Stanton as a weathered repo man in a desolate Los Angeles, and Emilio Estevez ...
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Straight to Hell
Directed by Alex Cox • 1987 • United Kingdom, United States
Starring Dick Rude, Sy Richardson, Courtney LoveFour hapless bank robbers attempt to hide out in a depopulated desert town only to discover that it’s not really deserted at all in director Alex Cox’s wildly surreal send-up of the spagh...
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Highway Patrolman
Directed by Alex Cox • 1991 • Mexico, Japan
Starring Roberto Sosa, Bruno Bichir, Vanessa BaucheRenegade director Alex Cox decamped to Mexico for this potent, surrealist-streaked moral drama about what it means to hold onto one’s integrity in the face of overwhelming corruption. Against his fath...
