The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005) is Tommy Lee Jones's western drama, available to watch online on iFILM. Jones directs and stars: his rancher hauls a dead friend's body across the border to give him the burial he was promised.

In the desert near the Texas line, Mexican ranch hand Melquiades Estrada is shot and dumped, then dug up and reburied without a name in a town cemetery. Pete Perkins figures out who pulled the trigger: border agent Mike Norton, who fired in a careless panic. Pete abducts him, exhumes the corpse, and forces him to march the body by horseback across the Rio Grande to the village Estrada called home. Barry Pepper plays the bound Norton, with Dwight Yoakam and January Jones among those left on the American side.

Guillermo Arriaga, who wrote Amores Perros and 21 Grams, scripts it with his trademark scrambled timeline. Jones took the best actor prize at Cannes for the role, and the film landed the screenplay award there too. Slow, sun-scorched and unsentimental, it's a meditation on guilt, friendship and the weight of a promise kept. Stream The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005) online on iFILM.