Brimstone

A brutal, non-linear psychological Western follows Liz, also called Joanna, a frontier midwife and survivor. She is hunted across years by a fanatical preacher known as The Reverend. The story unfolds in four chapters with biblical titles: Revelation, Exodus, Genesis, and Retribution. It tracks incestuous abuse, forced prostitution, mutilation, and revenge in the late-nineteenth-century American West. The film is grim and intense, and it focuses on her long fight to stay free and protect her life as a mother.

The whole narrative is built around a woman fleeing male sexual and religious control for her entire life. Gendered oppression is the spine of the four-chapter structure, not a side beat. Christianity, a Calvinist-coded preacher, church power, and patriarchal male authority are the main engines of evil. Toxic masculinity, male entitlement, and religious institutions that enable rape and domination are hard to miss. Queer identity is absent, and the casting is mostly era-typical rather than a diversity showcase. The result reads as a feminist-adjacent survival Western that strongly critiques religious authority and male power.