This document is a draft of the screenplay for the film No Country for Old Men by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy. It begins with a voiceover from an old sheriff reflecting on his career and the old-time sheriffs of the past who never wore guns. Through landscapes dissolving into one another, the sheriff talks about comparing himself to the old-timers and a criminal case he had involving a boy who murdered a 14-year-old girl without passion, saying he had planned it for a long time and would do it again if released. The pan ends on a police car on the side of the road.

1. No Country for OldMen
Adaptation by
Joel Coen andEthan Coen
Based onthe Novel by Cormac McCarthy
Thisdraft: Novemba 28, 2005

2. FADE EV:
MOUNTAINS NIGHT
Snow is falling in a gusting wind. The voice of an old man:
Voice-Over
I was sheriff of this county when I was twenty-five. Hard
to believe. Grandfather was a lawman. Father too. Me
and him was sheriff at the same time, him in Plano and me
here. I think he was pretty proud of that. I know I was.
We dissolve to another West Texas landscape. Sun is rising.
Some of the old-time sheriffsnever even wore a gun. A lot
of folks find that hard to believe. Jim Scarboroughnever
carried one. That's the younger Jim. Gaston Boykins
wouldn't wear one. Up in Commanche County.
Wc dissolve through more landscapes, bringing us to 111day. None of them show
s people or human habitation.
I always likedto hear about the old-timers. Never missed a
chance to do so. Nigger Hoskins over in Bastrop County
knowed everbody's phone number off by heart. You can't
help but compareyourself against the old timers. Can't
help but wonder how they would've operatedthese times.
There was this boy I sent to Huntsvillehere a while back.
My arrest and my testimony. He killed a fourteen-year-old
girl. Papers said it was a crime ofpassion but he told me
there wasn't any passion to it.
The last landscape, hard sunbaked prairie, is surveyed in a long slow pan.
Told me that he'd been planning to kill somebody for about
as long as he could remember. Said that if they turned him
out he'd do it again.
The pan has brought into frame the flashing lightbarsof a police car stopped on the
shoulder. A young sheriffs deputy is opening the rear door on the far side of the car.
Saidhe knew he was going to hell. Be there in about fifteen
minutes. I don't know what to make of that. I surely don't.