From Alien to Mash to Contact to Harold and Maude to Top Gun, Tom Skerritt has impressed with numerous supporting turns as one of Hollywood’s preeminent character actors. Now, after a career spanning six decades, he’s finally nabbed a leading role in the modern western East of the Mountains. Following a premiere at Seattle International Film Festival earlier this year, it’ll open in theaters on September 24, and we’re pleased to debut the exclusive trailer.

In the S.J. Chiro-directed film, Skerrit plays a retired heart surgeon and recent widower who learns he has terminal cancer. Determined to navigate his final days on his own terms, he travels back to his boyhood home in Eastern Washington with just his dog in tow—but his journey does not go as planned. Based on David Guterson’s best-selling novel, East of the Mountains is shot around the Columbia basin...