Jeremiah Johnson

Jeremiah Johnson (1972) is Sydney Pollack's western starring Robert Redford, ready to watch online on iFILM. Worn out by people and war, a veteran heads into the Rocky Mountains to live as a trapper, far from anything resembling civilization.

The mountains nearly finish him first. He can't set a trap, he freezes, he starves, and only a chance meeting with a grizzled old hunter, Bear Claw, keeps the greenhorn alive. Season by season Johnson roots himself in this brutal country: he takes in a mute orphan boy, marries the daughter of a chief, and raises a cabin. Then one forced decision crosses sacred Crow ground, and the tribe begins a long, patient pursuit of him.

Redford carries most of the film on stillness and a hard stare, with very little dialogue. Pollack shot it in the real Utah high country, where winter plays like its own character. Drawn from frontier legends of the actual mountain man John Johnston, it became one of the quietest and most enduring westerns of the decade. Stream Jeremiah Johnson (1972) online on iFILM.