The Thicket 2024

On the morning Lula Parker Esme Creed-Miles and her brother Jack Parker Levon Hawke learn their father has died of smallpox, the family’s precarious future is upended. Their grandfather Caleb hands Jack a grim last will, leaving him and Lula with 700 acres of land in Montana to be claimed after Caleb’s death. As the trio heads toward their aunt’s farm in Kansas, they’re halted at a ferry by the notorious Cut-Throat Bill Juliette Lewis and her gang. In a tense standoff, Caleb shoots Bill, who rides away barely wounded, only for Bill to kill Caleb in turn. Bill abducts Lula, who had shown a spark of affection for her captor, and leaves Jack for dead.

The hard road to safety leads Bill and her gang to a dry-goods store in Sylvester, where Lula regains consciousness and tries to warn the shop’s owner’s son before a chaotic gunfight erupts. Bill’s brutality comes into sharp relief as she kills both the store owner and his son, scattering the town and leaving a lone man behind as the gang vanishes.

Jack awakens in the aftermath and wanders into Sylvester just as the mob reels from frenzy to lynching. He witnesses a separate kidnapping—the moment when another girl is dragged into a wagon—before he’s beaten back to unconsciousness, trapped in a cycle of pursuit and uncertainty.

Two bounty-hunters, Reginald Jones Peter Dinklage and Eustace Hollow Gbenga Akinnagbe, have just finished a bounty when a dispute with an Alderman over pay spirals into violence. Jones stabs the Alderman in the hand and robs him to secure full payment, then escapes. The Alderman, impressed by Lula’s potential bounty, hires Simon Deasy James Hetfield and Malachi Deasy Macon Blair to kill Jones and recover the situation.

In the meantime, Jack tries to rescue his old crush Jimmie Sue Leslie Grace from her pimp Hector Andrew Schulz. He knocks Hector out, and they slip away, but Bill’s gang remains a looming threat. Bill’s crew speaks of a hideout known as the Thicket in the mountains, a place Bill is said to frequent for abducting young girls, and Lula clings to the hope that safety lies ahead.

Jones and Eustace capture a gang member and extract information through brutal torture, but Jones grows wary of a payout that is too small to justify the hunt. He and Eustace eventually depart, leaving Lula’s fate in the balance. Lula, meanwhile, collides with Simon and Malachi, who promise protection until they can claim the bounty on Jones’s head. Bill recaptures Lula and kills Simon, devastating Malachi.

Jack and Jimmie join forces with Jones and Eustace, offering to transfer Caleb’s land deed to fund Lula’s rescue. The plan is risky, but the four pursue Bill’s gang with caution, though Jones halts the move when Lula sits squarely in the line of fire. Malachi returns to the fray, driven by vengeance for Simon’s death.

As they near the Thicket, Bill reaches a church and torches it, an act that leads the group to a priest who reveals Bill’s tragic origin: she is the daughter of a prostitute who suffered brutal abuse and who, at a breaking point, burned her mother alive. Reaching the Thicket, Malachi tries to slip inside but is killed by a gang member outside a bathroom, and Jimmie fires back, only to be fatally stabbed in the ensuing fight. Bill finally seizes Lula, aiming to finish Jack, but Lula runs out of bullets and fights back as best she can. Jones intervenes with a long-range shot, killing Bill, while Eustace is mortally wounded in the confrontation.

The violence leaves Jack mortally wounded as well, and he dies from his injuries shortly after. A grief-stricken Lula decapitates Bill and presents the head to the sheriff, who confirms that Bill’s bounty had indeed increased. With the danger ended, Lula and Jones decide to rebuild a life together, burying Jack and Caleb as Lula begins the slow, hopeful task of healing and starting anew.