It stars John Magaro, Orion Lee, Toby Jones, Ewen Bremner, Scott Shepherd, Gary Farmer, Stephen Malkmus, Alia Shawkat, and Lily Gladstone.

In 1820, Otis "Cookie" Figowitz is a quiet chef traveling in Oregon Country with a group of loud and aggressive fur trappers who harass him for not finding them enough food.

Cookie's group reaches a fort and Lu finds him there, babysitting an infant in the middle of a bar fight, and invites him to his house.

Lu laments that poor men don't stand a chance to get ahead without some kind of fortune or committing a crime.

Cookie reminisces about his days as a baker's assistant in Boston and tells Lu that he could use some of the cow's milk to make baked goods.

They sneak onto the Chief Factor's property at night, Cookie milking the cow and Lu keeping watch from a tree.

Lu and Cookie proudly deliver the clafoutis and observe as the Chief Factor offers tea with cream to the captain, remarking that despite his cow's good breeding, it is producing very little milk.

A man at the Chief Factor's estate comes out to fetch a cat, and the tree branch breaks before Cookie hears Lu's warning call.

They run as the alarm is raised, and after the captain sees the pail and stool and informs the Chief Factor his cow was being milked, they send their men to kill Lu and Cookie.

Lu trades his buttons to hire a canoe to go downstream in search of Cookie, and returns to the shack, hiding from the Chief Factor's men rummaging through the destruction.

In October 2018, it was announced that Kelly Reichardt would direct the film, from a screenplay she wrote alongside Jonathan Raymond.

The website's critical consensus reads, "First Cow finds director Kelly Reichardt revisiting territory and themes that will be familiar to fans of her previous work—with typically rewarding results.