The Ballad of Buster Scruggs: All 6 Endings Explained

screenrant.com:

Academy Award-winning directors Joel and Ethan Coen return to the Old West in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, here are all 6 of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs' endings explained. It's not often that the Coen brothers decide to create an anthology movie, but in 2018 Netflix decided to produce a Western directed by the Coens. The movie is separated into 6 stories, each with its own thought-provoking and brutal ending: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Near Algodones, Meal Ticket, All Gold Canyon, The Gal Who Got Rattled, and The Mortal Remains. The movie features a number of well-known actors like James Franco, Liam Neeson, and Harry Melling.

Presented as a book of Old West tall tales, the Coen brothers wrote The Ballad of Buster Scruggs over the course of 25 years. Available on Netflix, the anthology movie chapters cycle through absurd, humorous, tragic, and surreal, and play with different movie tropes common to the Western. Each short is a standalone story with separate meanings and endings, with the Coens not crossing over any characters or even settings. Rather, the common denominator of the half-dozen chapters is thematic. The shorts deal with the many different harsh realities of life in the Old West but especially death, which visits the characters in every story, all leading to The Ballad of Buster Scruggs ending in tragedy.

Related: The Western Elvis Presley & John Wayne Almost Made Together

Whether it's the violently farcical musical exploits of Buster Scruggs himself or the haunting and ghostly final carriage ride of the sixth and final short, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs' endings meanings can be elusive. All 6 chapters end in possible death and heartbreak while the Coen brothers bring their masterful storytelling