Westerns have always been a male-dominated genre. From the old days of John Wayne and Gary Cooper to more modern movies with Clint Eastwood and Kevin Costner, it is the tough guys who stand tall.

If a movie is a crowd-pleaser, then it’s probably something of a blockbuster, or at least it’s the kind of smaller movie that’s going to be broadly appealing. Raiders of the Lost Ark or maybe Star ...