This 1969 film, the first deconstructionist Western, set the tone for future buddy comedies, helped revive the Western film genre, and made a superstar out of Robert Redford, whose Sundance Institute has become the major supporter of independent films. Also starring Paul Newman as Butch and Katherine Ross as Etta Place, and directed by George Roy Hill, this lighthearted, "contemporary" Western paved the way for modern Westerns such as Young Guns and The Long Riders.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was based on the lives of two actual Old West outlaws—Robert Leroy Parker (Butch) and Harry Longabaugh (Sundance). By the 1890s, Butch was the head of the largest and most successful outlaw gang in the West, known as both the Wild Bunch and the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang. Butch was chosen leader based solely on his personality; he was...