It stars Tim Blake Nelson, Tyne Daly, James Franco, Brendan Gleeson, Bill Heck, Grainger Hines, Zoe Kazan, Harry Melling, Liam Neeson, Jonjo O'Neill, Chelcie Ross, Saul Rubinek, and Tom Waits.

The film earned three nominations at the 91st Academy Awards: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Costume Design, and Best Original Song ("When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings").

Buster Scruggs, a cheerful singing cowboy clad in white, arrives at an isolated cantina full of outlaws.

Buster complies and proceeds to shoot off each of the fingers of his opponent's right hand before stylishly finishing him off with the sixth shot delivered over-the-shoulder using a mirror.

Buster examines the bullet hole in his hat before collapsing, admitting in voice-over that he should have foreseen that "you can't be top dog forever".

The execution is interrupted by attacking Comanche warriors, who slaughter the posse but leave the cowboy sitting on his horse with the noose around his neck.

An aging impresario and his artist, Harrison, a usually uncommunicative young man with no arms or legs, travel from town to town in a wagon that converts into a small stage where Harrison theatrically recites classics such as Shelley's poem "Ozymandias"; the biblical story of Cain and Abel; works by Shakespeare, including Sonnet 29 and The Tempest; and Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

The impresario collects money from the crowd at the end of each performance, but profits are dwindling as they visit increasingly remote towns with smaller, less appreciative audiences.

The wagon train's leaders, Mr. Billy Knapp and Mr. Arthur, attribute Gilbert's death to cholera and help Alice bury him.

Billy proposes to solve Alice's dilemma by marrying her in Fort Laramie, assuming Gilbert's debt, and retiring from leading wagon trains to build a home and family with her upon the 640 acres in Oregon that he can claim according to the Homestead Act.

An Englishman (Thigpen), an Irishman (Clarence), a Frenchman (René), a lady (Mrs. Betjeman), and a fur trapper ride to Fort Morgan, Colorado, in a stagecoach.

The Trapper rambles about his past relationship with a Hunkpapa woman in which neither knew the other's language but were able to understand each other's emotions, leading him to conclude that people are all essentially alike.

Mrs. Betjeman, a devout Christian, indignantly retorts that there are only two kinds of people, upright and sinning, and says she knows this because her husband, whom she is traveling to meet after having been apart for three years, is a retired Chautauqua lecturer on "moral and spiritual hygiene."

[5][11] Tim Blake Nelson was given the script for the eponymous story in 2002 and told that a second, "Meal Ticket", was in outline form, but did not hear until 2016 that the project would commence production.

[13] "The Gal Who Got Rattled" was inspired by a story by Stewart Edward White,[14] and is based in part on contemporaneous accounts, including those of heated arguments over pets.

[24] "The Gal Who Got Rattled" was shot on private land north of Mitchell in the Nebraska Panhandle, with a casting call for "ordinary" Nebraskans as extras.

[27][28] Joel Coen said the shoot was physically demanding, involving exterior shots with uncovered sets, "really brutal weather", and much travel over wide-ranging locations.

[17] The long wagon train in "The Gal Who Got Rattled" proved especially challenging because of the difficulty of coordinating the oxen teams for timing and direction.

Designer Mary Zophres credited historical reenactment supply companies for carrying hard-to-find period fabrics, noting that U.S. wool production, at the time of filming, was "practically nil".

[27] From the outset, the Coens ruled out traditional film studio funding, seeing an industry shift in how smaller projects are financed.

Joel Coen said that Netflix was investing in movies not based on Marvel Comics or other established action franchises, "which is pretty much the business of the studios now".

[17] Netflix funding was also the reason composer Carter Burwell conducted his score, with up to 40 musicians, at Abbey Road Studios in London, which he found ironic given that the film is an American Western.

[29] Netflix does not disclose box-office results, but IndieWire tracked reserved online seating sales and deduced The Ballad of Buster Scruggs made $6,600 on its first day from its Los Angeles and New York City locations.

The website's critical consensus reads, "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs avoids anthology pitfalls with a consistent collection tied together by the Coen brothers' signature blend of dark drama and black humor.