The Rider

The Rider (2018) is a modern western drama from Chloé Zhao that you can watch online on iFILM. Young cowboy Brady was a rising rodeo star and a gifted horse trainer until a bronc crushed his skull. The doctors are blunt: his riding days are finished.

Back on the Pine Ridge reservation, Brady has no idea who he is without the arena. He picks up shifts at a grocery store, breaks horses for other people, and visits a friend left paralyzed by the same kind of fall, slowly piecing together a self that no longer fits the only role he ever wanted. The leads aren't actors at all but real reservation residents, Brady Jandreau and his own family, essentially playing versions of themselves.

Zhao shoots almost like a documentary under the wide skies of South Dakota, four years before her Oscar-winning Nomadland. It's a quiet film with little plot in the usual sense, yet it speaks with rare honesty about losing the one thing you were built to do. Ideal if you favor restrained, poetic drama. Stream The Rider (2018) online on iFILM.