10 Actors Who Played Billy The Kid In Movies & TV Shows, Ranked

There have been several Billy the Kid cast choices in both film and television. One of the earliest appearances of William H. Bonney on film was in a pair of silent films made in 1911, one of which was titled The Adventure of Billy the Kid, directed by filmmaking pioneer D. W. Griffith. Many generations of great directors and actors of the Western genre gravitated toward the Old American West outlaw spirit of Billy the Kid, which resulted in his portrayals in film, TV, plays, radio broadcasts, and even songs throughout the years.

Billy the Kid has become legendary because of his intriguing moral complexity. The real-life Billy the Kid was born Henry McCarty. An orphan at age 15, he died by the hand of a lawman’s gun at the age of 21. Billy was a notorious outlaw who murdered at least 20 men and evaded the law for most of his brief adult life. Billy was one of the most prominent celebrity figures of the Old West era who, despite his dangerous gunslinging skills, was known to be a friendly and even charming character.

10 Geoffrey Deuel

Chisum (1970)

Geoffrey Deuel portrayed Billy the Kid in the 1970 Western Chisum, starring John Wayne as a cattle baron who fought on Billy’s side in the historic Lincoln County War. While Deuel certainly had the look of a Hollywood star, his polished appearance and relatively plain demeanor didn’t exactly suit the expected ruggedness of the real-life William H. Bonney. In this movie, John Henry Tunstall (Patrick Knowles) hires Billy and offers him a chance to reform and change his way.

Billy helps John Chisum (Wayne) protect his land. While Deuel’s Billy the Kid isn’t necessarily the primary focus of Chisum, the character is a big reason that things go sideways when he takes matters into his own hands for revenge for his boss’s murder and forces a huge battle at the end. This is also a very inaccurate retelling of Billy’s life as he works with Pat Garrett and ends up gaining amnesty for his crimes.

9 Kris Kristofferson

Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid (1973)

Kris Kristofferson, best known for his talents as a country singer, played Billy the Kid in two separate installments, the first of which was in legendary Western director Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garret & Billy the Kid. Peckinpah, who cemented his legacy as a Western director with 1969’s innovative The Wild Bunch, reimagines the rivalry between friends turned enemies Pat Garrett (James Coburn) and William H. Bonney that led to the latter’s death.

Kristofferson’s formidable size and chiseled figure don’t exactly capture the lanky look of the real-life Billy the Kid, but the actor offers an enjoyable performance nonetheless. The movie also goes a long way to showing how the relationship made Garrett respect Billy, even after gunning him down. The film remains considered a masterpiece and picked up a Criterion Collection release in 4K in 2024.

8 Jack Buetel

The Outlaw (1943)

Jack Buetel played one of the first portrayals of Billy the Kid on colored film toward the end of the silent film era. Buetel is rather stiff and traditional in his performance as the notorious outlaw, although his likeness does appear more closely aligned to that of the real-life Billy the Kid. Considering Buetel made his film debut in the role of William H. Bonney, the young actor did a fairly good job of capturing some of the naivety that was inevitably a part of the real Billy’s youthfully confident character.

The movie features a story about Sheriff Pat Garrett (Thomas Mitchell) dealing with both the antagonistic Billy the Kid and Pat’s own friend, Doc Holliday (Walter Huston), who takes a liking to the young outlaw. Interestingly, taking top billing is Jane Russell, who plays Rio McDonald, Doc’s girlfriend who wants Billy dead for killing her brother, but eventually falls in love with him. Interestingly, Garrett comes across as the villain in this movie, rather than the actual outlaw.

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7 Val Kilmer

Gore Vidal’s Billy The Kid (1989)

Val Kilmer offered a soft-spoken interpretation of William H. Bonney in Gore Vidal’s Billy the Kid, a movie made for television by director William A. Graham. Unlike the other portrayals of the infamous outlaw, Kilmer added an accent with a bit of a Southern twang to the character, which helps establish his authenticity in the role early on. Kilmer’s performance in Gore Vidal’s Billy the Kid was one of the very first of his Hollywood career and led to his breakthrough role as Jim Morrison in The Doors.

This also wasn’t Kilmer’s last time to go to the Wild West. It isn’t even his best role, as Kilmer remains highly remembered and critically acclaimed for his role as Doc Holliday in the 1990s Western Tombstone. Kilmer was nominated for Best Male Performance at the MTV Movie Awards for her performance in Tombstone.

6 Clu Gulager

The Tall Man (1960 – 1962)

Clu Gulager portrayed Billy the Kid more than most other actors who took on the role, covering 75 episodes across two seasons of the Western series The Tall Man from 1960 to 1962. The pair of Gulager with Barry Sullivan’s Pat Garrett was the bread and butter of the show, with a compelling onscreen chemistry between the two actors. Gulager is very convincing as the playful and tricky outlaw Billy the Kid, with a simple-minded sensibility and a world-class sharpshooting talent.

The series lasted for two seasons and a massive 75 episodes, with Sullivan and Gulager as the only two main cast members on the show. When this series started, it was still the case where Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett were friends. The show also had several major stars appear in the series, including Harry Carey Jr., James Coburn, Michael Landon, Vic Morrow, Leonard Nimoy, and Claude Akins.

5 Emilio Estevez

Young Guns (1988) & Young Guns II (1990)

Emilio Estevez gives one of the most colorful and lively portrayals of Billy the Kid in Young Guns and Young Guns II. Eztevez stands out as one of the unspoken leaders in a notorious group of young gunmen that includes Kiefer Sutherland’s Doc Scurlock, Lou Diamond Phillips’s Chavez y Chavez, Charlie Sheen’s Dick Brewer, and Dermot Mulroney’s Dirty Steve Stephens.

While Estevez gives a modern interpretation of the character that inevitably feels like a product of the 1980s itself, his gravitating onscreen presence makes his Billy the Kid rendition one of the most exciting. It is also a franchise that might not be over with yet. Emilio Estevez has said that he still wants to return for Young Guns 3 called Guns 3: Alias Billy the Kid, and he wants to bring back Lou Diamond Phillips and Christian Slater as well.

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4 Tom Blyth

Billy The Kid (2022 – )

With two seasons as the titular protagonist on the MGM+ series under this belt, English actor Tom Blyth has demonstrated an expert understanding of the notorious outlaw Billy the Kid. The series features many lesser-known details about Billy the Kid as portrayed through Blyth’s performance, particularly his real-life tendency to sing. Blyth also captures the lanky, disheveled look of the infamous outlaw, making his recent rendition of Billy the Kid already one of the best of all time.

The series has two seasons so far, with the second half of season 2 arriving in June 2024. Both seasons feature eight episodes and start off with Billy McCarty as a 12-year-old who sets out to find his place in the world. The series not only features Billy the Kid but also several other real-life figures from the Wild West, including Jesse Evans, John Middleton, and Tom O’Folliard, former friends of Billy the Kid.

3 Audie Murphy

The Kid From Texas (1950)

Audie Murphy, who was one of the most decorated soldiers of WWII before becoming an actor, portrays Billy the Kid with a cool sense of pride that is rare to find in other interpretations of the notorious character. Despite his polished look, Murphy presents a depth to the character that makes his Billy the Kid somewhat distant and lost within his own mind while simultaneously feeling incredibly accessible to the audience.

Murphy’s portrayal of Billy the Kid is surprising and strategic, a credit to the heroic actor’s inherent talents. This movie is a remake of a 1939 film of the same name (with Dennis O’Keefe playing William “Wild Bill” Malone in that movie). The new movie changed it from Wild Bill to Billy the Kid and the film sees Billy kill a group of men who murdered his boss. He turns down a pardon from the governor, who then sends Pat Garrett to catch Billy.

2 Paul Newman

The Left Handed Gun (1958)

The celebrated Western star Paul Newman is an icon of the genre, making his portrayal of Billy the Kid in The Left Handed Gun an inevitable delight. Newman’s eyes tell so much of Billy the Kid’s story in The Left Handed Gun, hinting at his unhinged and spontaneous desire for danger and overall unpredictable nature. Newman’s Billy the Kid is somewhat over the top at times but is ultimately full of passion, excitement, and brute force that align with the real-life William H. Bonney.

Gore Vidal wrote the script for this movie, but he felt that director Arthur Penn changed too much about it and “butchered” his story. He made Billy the Kid in 1989 with Val Kilmer to tell the story the way he meant it to be (via The New York Times). Newman went on to star in one of the best Westerns of all time after this, as he played Sundance Kid in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, alongside Robert Redford.

1 Dane DeHaan

The Kid (2019)

Dane DeHaan is an incredibly talented actor who, at times, is reminiscent of a young Leonardo DiCaprio in 2019’s The Kid alongside Ethan Hawke (as Pat Garrett). DeHaan perfectly captures the rugged physical appearance of the actual Billy the Kid with an uncanny resemblance, making the audience feel as though they are looking at the closest onscreen rendition of the real-life outlaw.

DeHaan brings an element of internal damage to the infamous gunslinger, highlighting the tragic nature of the real-life Billy the Kid. This movie was directed by actor Vincent D’Onofrio (Daredevil) and the story is not so much about Billy as it is about a young man named Rio (Jake Schur) and his sister Sata (Leila George), who Billy takes under his wing after they kill their father in self-defense. The real bad guy here, though, is Chris Pratt’s Grant, although Billy plays a big role in the story as well.