Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke’s queer cowboy movie gets theatrical release

Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke in Strange Way of Life — (Image credit: Pathé)

Strange Way of Life, Pedro Almodovar's queer Western romance, is getting a theatrical release from Sony Pictures Classics.

The short film will hit theaters in New York City and Los Angeles on October 4 before expanding nationwide on October 6. The Western, which first premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, sees Hawke play a sheriff named Jake while Pascal is a gunslinger known as Silva. The 30-minute English-language film sees Silva ride a horse across a desert to visit Sheriff Jake after 25 long years. Silva tells him that he's there to rekindle their friendship, but Jake knows it's something much more.

Almodovar, who was initially attached to direct Brokeback Mountain, previously referred to Strange Way of Life as his "answer" to the film as well as the queer Western genre.

"It's a queer Western, in the sense that there are two men and they love each other. It's about masculinity in a deep sense because the Western is a male genre," the filmmaker explained on Dua Lipa's At Your Service podcast (via The Gay Times).

Strange Way of Life will play in theaters alongside Almodovar's 2020 short film, The Human Voice, which stars Tilda Swinton as a woman experiencing abandonment. Sony Pictures Classics will distribute both nationwide.

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