1969 was a great year for movies. The rift between generations and the general negative feeling about the country’s state of affairs and future prospects may have been hell on America’s psyche, but it sure made for great art.

Two great films of that year were Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch and George Roy Hill’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They were similar in many respects. Both were westerns, both featured stellar casts from both old and new Hollywood, both were helmed by bold directors not afraid to take chances. Both films brilliantly explored the theme of what happens to men who outlive the times they were born for and what it means to exist on the fringe of a society one cannot accept or be accepted by.

Yet, for all these similarities, The Wild Bunch and Butch and Sundance are remarkably different motion pictures. The former delves into the darker realm of man’s capacity to commit atrocities, making its point with periodic orgies of violence and bloodshed. The latter achieves its goals with slick dialogue and wit; its heroes exchanging humorous barbs to the bitter end even after they realize their luck has finally run out.

Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch follows a fictional gang of outlaws into the No Man’s Land of the American southwest at the turn of the 20th century. Pike Bishop and Dutch Engstrom, played to grizzled perfection by William Holden and Ernest Borgnine, lead their crew from one lousy score to the next, trying to stay ahead of the law and preserve their fragile morality.

They are hounded by a former member of their gang, Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan), who is now working for The Man. He leads a group of bounty hunters intent on bringing Pike to justice by any means necessary. In Peckinpah’s world, that means dead or… dead.

Pike and company make a deal with a self-styled Mexican war lord that goes wrong. Many bullets are exchanged, blood flows freely and the film’s anti-heroes — make no mistake, there are no heroes in this movie — go down in a blaze of gory glory.

The Wild Bunch has grim answers to questions about mortality, morality, honor, and friendship. Peckinpah’s vision pulled no punches, and the film took a beating in the press for its violence, which was made all the more visceral and jarring through the use of slow motion and multiple camera angles, a novelty at the time. The director said he wanted the audience to really sense what it meant to be gunned down. The movie is very realistic about its gunplay in that regard, so mission accomplished.

Many of the people in Butch and Sundance actually existed, but the movie takes a lot of liberties with the legend of Robert Leroy Parker and Harry Longabaugh, a.k.a. Butch and Sundance. Sure, they were bank and train robbers who operated during the turn of the 20th century, but their lives and fates were “Hollywoodized” by top-notch screenwriter William Goldman, reportedly because he didn’t want to do a lot of research for the film.

Butch and Sundance follows the two outlaws as they try to avoid capture by faceless bounty hunters who we learn about only through dialogue between the two main characters. They concoct a plan to go to Bolivia to escape the clutches of the law, but find that life as bandidos yanquis in Central America is no easier than in the U.S. The Bolivian Army decides it has had enough of Butch and Sundance, but the screen mercifully freezes right before we have to see the film’s heroes gunned down by a hundred Bolivian soldiers.

Yes, Butch and Sundance are undeniably heroes. Anti-heroes because they are technically bad guys who rob banks, but they are the subject of the film and we do find ourselves rooting for them. And played by the super handsome and charismatic Paul Newman and Robert Redford, they ooze charm and wit in every scene. In comparison to the rough-around-the-edges-and-down-to-the-core outlaws of The Wild Bunch, these guys make robbing banks attractive and cool. So, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid isn’t going to win points for realism. But throw in the exceptionally beautiful Katharine Ross, scenic vistas, crisp cinematography, and crackling dialogue, and you end up with a film you can’t take your eyes off of.

Audiences agreed. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was one of the reigning box office champs of the early 1970s before Jaws brought on the blockbuster era. It was nominated for Best Picture, and it won Oscars for Best Original Musical Score (beating out The Wild Bunch) and Best Original Screenplay (beating out The Wild Bunch again).

The Wild Bunch didn’t get the same appreciation at the box office, but it had a much narrower audience to work with. It was not a date movie by any stretch, and it was much more violent than general audiences were used to dealing with. It did however get more respect from critics at the time than Butch and Sundance, which was considered trite and off-kilter.

Personally, I think both The Wild Bunch and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are very good movies. But I promised myself I wouldn’t equivocate, so I am going to side with The Wild Bunch. It has a gritty realistic feel and amazing direction and cinematography. It also does a better job of driving home its theme about what happens to anachronistic men who can’t adapt to a changing world. This is a common theme in literature, and in history as well.

Both films rank high on all the obligatory greatest-movies-ever lists, but Butch and Sundance is really just a great buddy picture that happens to also be a western. The Wild Bunch does more justice to the genre, and it’s a film that will always stick with you. Maybe even haunt you.

I recommend both films, but if you have never seen either one, watch Butch and Sundance first for the sheer entertainment of it. Then settle in and watch The Wild Bunch and prepare to have your mind blown.