All the Pretty Horses is a 2000 American Western film produced and directed by Billy Bob Thornton, based on Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same name, and starring Matt Damon and Penélope Cruz.

He asks his best friend Lacey Rawlins to leave his family ranch in San Angelo, Texas, and join him to travel on horseback to cross the border 150 miles (241 km) south, to seek work in Mexico.

While Rawlins returns to his parents' ranch in Texas, Cole attempts to reunite with Alejandra over her family's objections.

The judge had said good things about him in court, but Cole feels guilty that Blevins was killed, although there was nothing he could have done to prevent his death.

[8][9] The studios switched distribution roles reportedly, due to Billy Bob Thornton's refusal to cut the film, which was said to have a total runtime of three hours and 40 minutes.

[14] In his 2004 book Down and Dirty Pictures, Peter Biskind detailed the troubled post-production process of the film.

Matt Damon publicly criticized Weinstein's decision to edit the film, and is quoted by Biskind as saying: "It was like you bake a soufflé and somebody wants you to make it half the size, and you just chop the thing in half and try to mold it and make it look like that was how you made it to begin with.

He made a trailer with me and Penélope Cruz swimming around in the water, skinny-dipping, with Bono singing...And on the poster, they put, 'Some passions can never be tamed,' which is exactly what the movie's not about.

"[14] In a 2012 interview with Playboy, Damon reiterated his displeasure with the changes, saying: "Everybody who worked on All the Pretty Horses took so much time and cared so much.

They saw the cast, the director, Billy Bob Thornton, and the fact that we spent $50 million, and they never released our movie—though the cut still exists.

[17] Reviews for All the Pretty Horses were generally negative, criticizing it as a poor adaptation of the novel and a dramatically inert film.

[20] Entertainment Weekly critic Lisa Schwarzbaum said: "Faced with a choice of blunt instruments with which to beat a good book into a bad movie, director Billy Bob Thornton chooses heavy, random, arty imagery and a leaden pace.

"[21] She also criticized the film's narrative incoherence, writing, "The trail from one plot advance to the next is so badly mapped as to leave anyone unfamiliar with the novel back in the dust.