Unforgiven

In Big Whiskey, Quick Mike slashes Delilah Fitzgerald, disfiguring her after she laughs at his small penis. Sheriff Little Bill Daggett orders Mike and his associate Davey Bunting to hand over several ponies to Delilah's employer Skinny DuBois as compensation for the loss. The prostitutes respond with a $1,000 bounty for the cowboys' deaths, heightening the town's tension.

In Hodgeman County, Kansas, the boastful Schofield Kid visits Will Munny's hog farm, touting himself as a veteran bounty hunter. Will, a repentant widower who fears for his children's future, is initially reluctant to return to violence. Seeing his failing farm, he agrees to team up with Ned Logan and pursue the cowboys, catching up with the Kid along the way.

The trio discovers that the Schofield Kid is severely near-sighted, which complicates their plan and raises questions about his competence. They resolve to adapt their approach to the Kid's limitation. The tension between experience and reckoning its cost weighs on all of them.

English Bob arrives in Big Whiskey with his biographer Beauchamp, seeking the bounty. Little Bill disarms Bob and beats him savagely to deter others from claiming the reward. Beauchamp stays, drawn to the sheriff, while Bill explains his philosophy: stay cool under fire and kill the best shooter first.

Will, Ned, and the Kid ride into Big Whiskey amid a downpour and enter Skinny's saloon. Ned and the Kid head upstairs to meet the prostitutes, while Little Bill confronts Will, confiscates his pistol, and beats him. The town's tension over the bounty intensifies as the night progresses.

Ned and the Kid escape through a back window and take Will to an unoccupied barn outside town, where the prostitutes nurse him back to health. A few days pass as the group contemplates their next move and the risks of pursuing the bounty. The uneasy peace in Big Whiskey hangs in the balance.

A few days later, the trio ambushes Davey Bunting. They miss Davey and shoot his horse; Ned falters, and Will shoots Davey instead. Ned decides to quit and return to Kansas, abandoning the pursuit after the brutal encounter.

Ned is captured and flogged to death by Little Bill in an attempt to learn Will and the Kid's whereabouts. The sheriff's cruelty underscores the danger the bounty hunters face and the brutal justice of Big Whiskey's town.

Will takes the Kid to the cowboys' ranch and directs him to ambush Quick Mike in the outhouse. After the plan succeeds and they escape, the Kid, already burdened with doubt, confesses that he has never killed anyone before and feels deep remorse for what he has done.

A prostitute arrives with the reward money and informs them of Ned's fate, shocking Will. He drinks heavily and demands the Kid's revolver, signaling the breaking point in their uneasy alliance. The pursuit turns from vengeance to a reckoning within themselves.

That night, Ned's corpse is displayed in a coffin outside Skinny's Saloon, a stark symbol of the town's brutality. Little Bill and his deputies organize a posse, tightening the net around Will and the Kid. The mood in Big Whiskey shifts from pursuit to confrontation.

Will storms Skinny's, shoots Skinny for Ned's coffin display, and aims at Little Bill. The shotgun misfires at first, but Will then uses a revolver to kill Little Bill and several members of the posse, forcing the survivors to retreat. The town is left in ruins as Will asserts his own brutal justice.

Beauchamp lingers to ask how Will survived, and Will replies that it was luck, which unsettles the biographer. Little Bill dies, and both men acknowledge they will meet in Hell. The moment seals Will's fate as a man who cannot escape his past.

In a closing title, it is revealed that Will's farm was abandoned years later and his family perhaps moved to San Francisco. His mother-in-law never understands why her daughter married such a notorious outlaw, leaving a lingering sense of tragedy and ambiguity.