The Proposition is a movie directed by John Hillcoat and written by Nick Cave. It stars Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Emily Watson, John Hurt and Danny Huston. The film's production completed in 2004, and was followed by a wide 2005 release in Australia and a 2006 theatrical run in the U.S. through First Look Pictures. The movie was Rated R by the MPAA for strong grisly violence and for language.

Father Michael McKinnon goes from the UK to Boston circa 1935. For unknown reasons, he avoids at all costs the most prominent parishioners, Arthur and Eleanor Barret. Meanwhile Eleanor and Arthur desperately want to have a child, but Arthur is sterile, so they hire Harvard law student Roger Martin to impregnate Eleanor, but unfortunately Roger falls in love with her. Written by Anonymous

Rural Australia in the late nineteenth century: Capt. Stanley and his men capture two of the four Burns brothers, Charlie and Mike. Their gang is held responsible for attacking the Hopkins farm, raping pregnant Mrs. Hopkins and murdering the whole family. Arthur Burns, the eldest brother and the gang's mastermind, remains at large has and has retreated to a mountain hideout. Capt. Stanley's proposition to Charlie is to gain pardon and - more importantly - save his beloved younger brother Mike from the gallows by finding and killing Arthur within nine days. Written by Armin Ortmann {armin@sfb288.math.tu-berlin.de}

In Wales, around 1800, Catherine Morgan is widowed young, her husband a war casualty whose unpaid gambling debts threaten both the loss of home and farm and destitution for her and her daughters Elen and Emily. Catherine hopes to save them by selling their cattle at a distant market. She must overcome the hardships of the cattle drive across the craggy Welsh countryside as an obsessively infatuated sheriff, whom she does not love, attempts to thwart the drive; and she must work out her insecurities in her relationship to his half-brother, an experienced drover, who helps her on the drive. Written by Jerry Caplin