A hard look at one of cinemas oldest genres.
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This article was originally published September 4, 2019 and has been updated to include additional movies.
America can only claim a few art forms as its own.
Jazz, for sure.Comic books, certainly.
The history of movie Westerns more or less begins with the end of the Old West itself.
That, of course, still leaves a lot of great Westerns.
As such, not every John Ford film made the list.
Anthony Mann and James Stewart made eight Westerns together.
Any of them could have been included, but not all of them have been.
50.Dodge City(1939)
50.
Flynn plays a man compelled to clean up the lawless cattle town of Dodge City.
(Available to rent onAmazon,Apple TV, andGoogle Play.)
49.The Sisters Brothers(2018)
49.
It also tends to emphasize the grimier, more unpleasant aspects of life in the American West.
One litmus test: If you see flies buzzing around a corpse, youre probably watching a revisionist Western.
It also features a breathtaking ending thats unlike anything another Western has dared.
(Available to stream onPluto TV,Tubi, andPlex.)
48.Buck and the Preacher(1972)
48.
Joined by Ruby Dee, they make a fun buddy team.
(Available to stream onPrime VideoandTubi.)
47.Day of Anger(1967)
47.
(More on Leone, Eastwood, andA Fistful of Dollarsbelow.)
One example:Day of Anger, directed by Leones former assistant director Tonino Valerii.
(Available to stream onPlexandTubi).
46.The Great Train Robbery(1903)
46.
Most historians use 1912, when Arizona and New Mexico became states, as the closing of the frontier.
(Available to stream onYouTube.)
45.Broken Arrow(1950)
45.
The demeaning depictions have ties to some of the ugliest chapters in American history.
Some films tried to offer correctives, though they usually werent without their own sorts of awkwardness.
(Available to rent onAmazon,Apple TV, andGoogle Play.)
44.One-Eyed Jacks(1961)
44.
Marlon Brando only directed one movie and it didnt exactly do his career any favors.
He went over schedule, and over budget withOne-Eyed Jacks, which premiered to mixed reviews and commercial indifference.
(Available to stream onPluto TV,Tubi,andPlex.)
43.Little Big Man(1970)
43.
Crabb has an unusual perspective.
Even those who remember the past sometimes live long enough to see it repeated.
(Available to stream onPrime Video.)
42.The Left Handed Gun(1958)
42.
As played by Paul Newman, William Bonney is a trigger-happy hothead whos more misunderstood than evil.
Taken in by a cattle boss, he becomes enraged when a competing bunch of cattlemen kill his mentor.
(Available to rent onAmazon,Apple TV,andGoogle Play.)
41.The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford(2007)
41.
(Available to rent onAmazon,Apple TV, andGoogle Play.)
40.The Shootist(1976)
40.
Nor did Wayne, but Siegels film gives him a fitting good-bye.
(Available tostream on Showtime.)
39.Blazing Saddles(1974)
39.
Its silliness with a purpose, and the film weaves the jokes and the pointed jabs together brilliantly.
(Available tostream on Paramount+.)
38.The Tall T(1957)
38.
(Available to stream onPlex,Starz, andTubi.)
37.Django(1966)
37.
But his approach, and Neros performance, serve the lean, mean, bloody story well.
The original, however, remains a dark delight.
(Available to stream onPeacockandPluto TV.)
36.The Magnificent Seven(1960)
36.
The 50s and 60s found international filmmakers engaging in a fascinating cultural exchange.
The American Western repaid the tribute with this remake ofSeven Samuraidirected by John Sturges.
(Available to rent onAmazon,Apple TV, andGoogle Play.)
35.Bend of the River(1952)
35.
But does a fresh start always change the contents of a persons heart?
For Stewarts character, that means helping a wagon train find its way to Oregon.
For Kennedys thatmaybemeans the same thing.
(Not currently available on streaming.)
34.A Bullet for the General(1966)
34.
The Spaghetti Westerns offshoots include the Zapata Western, which set stories against the background of the Mexican Revolution.
(Available to stream onPlexandTubi.)
33.Vera Cruz(1954)
33.
Spaghetti Westerns didnt come out of nowhere.
(Available to stream onMGM+,Pluto TV,andTubi.)
32.Ride the High Country(1962)
32.
Randolph Scott, on the other hand, made one more Western, the 1962 filmRide the High Country.
The first Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah, it plays a bit like the passing of the torch.
Scott and Joel McCrea co-star as aging cowboys who take on the job of guarding a gold shipment.
(Available to rent onAmazon,Apple TV, andGoogle Play.)
31.The Shooting(1966)
31.
For a long time,The Shootingseemed almost more like a rumor than a film.
It never played theaters and aired just a few times on TV.
(Available to stream onPeacock,Prime Video,MaxandTubi.)
30.The Outlaw Josey Wales(1976)
30.
Clint Eastwoods fifth film as a director has tangled origins.
(Available to rent onAmazon,Apple TV, andGoogle Play.)
29.The Ox-Bow Incident(1943)
29.
They find some likely suspects, or at least suspects that seem likely enough to a bloodthirsty crowd.
In a genre with no shortage of blazing guns and casual killing,The Ox-Bow Incidentmakes every death sting.
(Available to rent onAmazon,Apple TV,andGoogle Play.)
28.For a Few Dollars More(1965)
28.
(Available to stream onMax.)
27.Winchester 73(1950)
27.
James Stewart didnt have the easiest time returning to work after World War II.
However, 1950 was a breakthrough year.
(Available to stream onStarz.)
26.True Grit(2010)
26.
It gets points for keeping Portiss bittersweet ending, too.
(Available to stream onParamount+andPluto TV.)
25.The Power of the Dog(2021)
25.
The brilliance of Benedict Cumberbatchs performance as the sadistic, ultra-macho Phil Burbank is in Phils phoniness.
(Available to stream onNetflix.)
24.The Gunfighter(1950)
24.
Its yet another 1950 Western that signaled a shift in the genre.
(Available to stream onPeacockandTubi.)
23.Dead Man(1995)
23.
(Available to stream onMax.)
22.7 Men From Now(1956)
22.
Boetticher reportedly described their unifying feature as common setup: Here comes Randy.
Here Randys problems especially tough.
Whether or not thats his problem proves central to the plot, and more complicated than it first appears.
(Available to rent onAmazon,Apple TV, andGoogle Play.)
21.A Fistful of Dollars(1964)
21.
(The cultural exchange between Kurosawa and the Western didnt end withThe Magnificent Seven.)
(Available to stream onMax.)
20.She Wore a Yellow Ribbon(1949)
20.
(Available to rent onAmazon,Apple TV, andGoogle Play.)
19.Shane(1953)
19.
The final shot is one of the Westerns most famous images and one of its saddest.
(Available to stream onParamount+andPluto TV.)
18.3:10 to Yuma(1957)
18.
(Available to stream onPrime Video.)
17.High Noon(1952)
17.
(Available to stream onMGM+,Paramount+, andPrime Video)
16.Forty Guns(1957)
16.
(Leone was doubtlessly taking notes.)
(Available to stream onPlexandTubi.)
15.Johnny Guitar(1954)
15.
Joan Crawford plays Vienna, a saloon owner who dominates everyone she meets with her imperious attitude.
(I never met a woman who was more man, her bartender says.)
Well, almost everyone.
Ray discovered just how beautifully the two could fit together.
(Available to rent onAmazon,Apple TV, andGoogle Play.)
14.My Darling Clementine(1946)
14.
The title reveals a lot.
Where other versions of the story bear names likeTombstoneandGunfight at the O.K.
(Available to rent onAmazon,Apple TV, andGoogle Play.)
13.Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid(1969)
13.
Some films were even more explicit about how changing times left some with nowhere left to call home.
(Available to rent onAmazon,Apple TV, andGoogle Play.)
12.The Good, the Bad and the Ugly(1966)
12.
Sometimes it plays like a pop-art Western, reducing the genres iconography to its splashiest imagery.
Leone wasnt quite done with the genre, however, as this list will attest.
(Available to stream onMax.)
11.The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance(1962)
11.
John Ford made all sorts of movies, but he kept circling back to the Western.
A return to black-and-white photography on soundstages, its a more intimate, psychological drama than Fords other Westerns.
(Available to stream onMGM+,Paramount+, andPrime Video.)
10.Meeks Cutoff(2010)
10.
Its a tough existence even when things are going well, and inMeeks Cutofftheyre not going well at all.
)(Available to stream onTubi.)
9.The Naked Spur(1953)
9.
(Available to rent onAmazon,Apple TV, andGoogle Play.)
8.Rio Bravo(1959)
8.
Yet Hawks never wastes a moment.
(Available to rent onAmazon,Apple TV, andGoogle Play.)
7.The Wild Bunch(1969)
7.
Was he making audiences consider the ugliness of taking a life?
Making bloodshed look disturbingly beautiful?
Could he be doing both at once?
(Available to rent onAmazon,Apple TV, andGoogle Play.)
6.Red River(1948)
6.
LikeRio Bravo,Red Riveris a film only Howard Hawks could have pulled off.
(Available to stream onMGM+,Pluto TV, andTubi.)
5.McCabe & Mrs. Miller(1971)
5.
His fate suggests that there might be less to that promise than advertised.
(Available to rent onAmazon,Apple TV, andGoogle Play.)
4.Stagecoach(1939)
4.
Is there such a thing as a perfect movie?
If not,Stagecoachcomes pretty close.
(Available to stream onPluto TV,Prime Video,andTubi.)
3.Once Upon a Time in the West(1968)
3.
(Available to stream onMGM+,Paramount+, andPrime Video.)
2.Unforgiven(1992)
2.
Munny has been, at varying points, all of the above, and hes haunted by each experience.
(Available to stream onApple TV.)
1.The Searchers(1956)
1.
Ethan and his companions soon find one, Lucy, dead.
Can a hero so awful really be called a hero at all?
How was the West won?
What did it mean?
What can we learn from it?
How did the stories we created from it shape our understanding of it all?
Its a place where searchers go.
(Available to rent onAmazon,Apple TV, andGoogle Play.)
