In the north western zinc-mining town of Presbyterian Church at the turn of the century, McCabe (Beatty), a bumbling small-time gambler, in the guise of a notorious gunslinger, becomes a business partner in a bordello run by the tougher more sophisticated, opium-smoking Mrs. Miller (Christie). They fall in love and he dreams of building a city out of the muddy frontier settlement but he has to face gunmen sent by a powerful mining company to kill him.

In a way, Robert Altman's first film of this genre (like his only other one to date, Buffalo Bill and the Indians) could be considered an anti-Western, exposing the myth of the heroic westerner and replacing it with an almost Marxist view of the westerner as an opportunistic financier, spreading capitalism and corruption. Awash with contemporary allusions, this personal film is very much enhanced by Vilmos Zsigmond's atmospheric photography - especially the memorable closing sequence in the snow - and the convincing creation of a mythical American town. Warren Beatty, glowering handsomely, makes McCabe an unheroic, uneducated figure, who doesn't wear a gun. On the soundtrack, commenting on the action, are Leonard Cohen songs which conjure up the spirit of the 1970s.