Off the top of my head the top 5 would be in no particular order
The Wild Bunch
The Unforgiven(Eastwood’s not Hustons)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Ride the High Country
My Darling Clementine
Hud (1963)
Hands down my favorite western of all time.
I’m also quite fond of Budd Boetticher’s Ride Lonesome (1959)
Once Upon a Time in the West, High Noon, Stagecoach, Will Penny and Destry Rides Again. Unless, of course, you ask me five minutes from now.
That’s my problem too, Tom. “Stagecoach” is the only one that stays in my top five consistently. Then again . . .
Like Steve, in no particular order:
Johnny Guitar
One-Eyed Jacks
Shane
Westworld
Stagecoach
That’s the trouble with lists: too fluid and so subjective. Because I can’t really ignore Unforgiven, Shane, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Ox-Bow Incident, The Wild Bunch and Henry King’s often-overlooked The Gunfighter. See what I mean?
Having grown up in the West with Westerns, I ended up being drawn to the anti-westerns or the un-westerns or the post-westerns. You wanted five? I would start with:
McCabe and Mrs. Miller
Lonely Are the Brave
The Ballad of Cable Hogue
Johnny Guitar
True Grit or Little Big Man (can’t deicde)
But dozens of “real” westerns: She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, High Noon, &tc etc etc
And then all those imports from Italy … guns and saddles blazing.
MMORE: How could I forget Lonely are the Brave! I’m a big Kirk Douglas fan and could’ve left out Westworld or Stagecoach for that one.
“McCabe and Mrs. Miller” is another one I’ve yet to see. It gets a lot of praise on this site, I’ll have to check it out. And I was surprised at how much I enjoyed “Johnny Guitar”, another favorite with members here. I believe “JG” is not available on DVD? Is that correct? “The Ballad Of Caleb Hogue” is a riot. I love “Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid”, Dylan and Kristofferson in the same movie together playing cowboys does it for me.
Once Upon A Time in the West, I could go on about this one forever. Searchers, The Wild Bunch, Fort Apache and another little ditty
from Italy, Django. But I personally consider once upon a time not only a great western but one of the best films ever committed to film.
I just watched the first 10 minutes of Once Upon a Time in the West because it was starting on Film4. Amazing scene. It was a big call not to commit the next three hours of my life to it – but I have to sleep sometime…
Soybean: Johnny Guitar is available on a Japanese all-regions DVD. Wish Criterion would pick it up.
“Once Upon A Time . . .” I can’t argue with you there, Chris. That’s why I didn’t even come up with a list to begin with. Too damn difficult. I may be getting closer though. Has anyone seen “Tall In The Saddle” and if so, does it come any where near approaching “Stagecoach”?
Soybean: Tall in the Saddle is another good western but i don’t believe it’s as good as Stagecoach. (Stagecoach is kind of a template, that set a pattern for many years to come.)
I’ll have to check out “Django”. Do you prefer it to all of the Eastwood spaghetti’s?
Rio Bravo is complete perfection.
Better than Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More definitely, The Good The Bad And Ugly Uhm, I think a debate could really go either way. But that’s the thing with lists, on with the new and out with the old etc. etc.
MMoore-Can’t believe I forgot McCabe & Mrs Miller-Love that movie. True Grit I would like better but the non acting of Glen Campbell ruins it for me.
I also forgot about Little Big Man.
Django is okay but not on the same level as Leone’s westerns.
I’ve never understood the popularity of Johnny Guitar. Joan Crawford gives an over the top, overwrought performance that is just terrible.
Justin: LONELY ARE THE BRAVE was quite special, because so small and unadorned. As I recall, Douglas himself made the project happen, insisted upon it, and then put in one of his best performances.
From an Ed Abbey novel, The Brave Cowboy, not a great one from him. (They actually gave Ed a job in the film as an extra, I think among the crowd at the bottom of the mountain, and he was always unhappy about the paycheck.) But the screenplay by none other than Dalton Trumbo.
Matthau may have not been the best casting for sheriff — making it something of an eastern western — but he was okay.
And of course the truck driver — hauling those marble toilets from the midwest or wherever for the fatal appointment with destiny — none other than Carroll O’Connor, who would go on to become another kind of American icon.
Once Upon a Time in the West
Wild Bunch
Searchers
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
Unforgiven
The Searchers
Wild Bunch
Rio Bravo
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Walker
What about “Duck, You Sucker”, “High Plains Drifter”, “Red River”, or any of the Anthony Mann/Jimmy Stewart westerns?
I just saw “My Darling Clementine” again for the first time in some time just recently…what a classic, western or otherwise.
Also:
The Searchers
Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid
Winchester 73
The Great Silence
Destry Rides Again
…and I’m sure a few others I can’t recall.
I have written extensively about my love for both UNFORGIVEN and THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALENCE on other threads on this site.
I heartily second anyone’s choice of ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST.
I will add Jim Jarmusch’s DEAD MAN, and a little seen but expertly done john Huston film, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JUDGE ROY BEAN.
And … if I may add a sixth … I still contend that THE MISSOURI BREAKS is a much better film than people give it credit.
the recent 3:10 to Yuma was exciting too, but sergio Leone classics (the good the bad and the ugly, once upon a time in the west) remain best for me
1. Sergio Leone: Once Upon a Time in the West: one of greatest films ever made; Best dramatic rendering of history of trajectory of US economic development toward concentration, led by ruling class “lumpens on the top,” (still more nuanced than Zinn); Clint Eastwood lucked out when cast by Leone, and
2. The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly: “One man’s principles are another man’s opportunity!” What more can you say about the ambiguous march toward morality of the human species: There are good, there are bad, and the majority in the middle are just trying to hang with the winner, instead of at the end of the rope!
3. John Ford: The Searchers – Filled with an epic sense of passing time, but with a compression that rivals Shakespeare, the pictorial drama of light and shade takes on moral implications — the nervousness and suspense of the first take represents the moral ambiguities of the characters themselves — and captures the dynamism of history. He always focused with great liveliness and naturalness on the everyday characters that people the arena of history, (and never abandoned their side). It is a movie about the costs of civilization, with John Wayne as the savage, coming to grips with diversity of US population. Yet the daily papers still insist that Ford was a composer of an “ode to the military, frothing with blood-lust.” This is the same man who made a war-movie called “They Were Expendable”… Ask your local Veteran if that rings a bell?
4. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence: Behind all the high talk at the state convention, the young democracy depends on Wayne’s gun and his will to use it. As James Taylor sang, “The point of a gun was the only law that [Liberty] understood… When the final showdown came to pass, a lawbook was no good!” A great hymn to the fight for freedom of the press, now long gone …
5. Little Big Man: In comparison, Kevin whats-his-name and his dancing wolves looks like a positive collaborationist in Indian genocide!
6. The Shootist: Wayne, dying of cancer, plays himself, dying of cancer. It took some courage to say, “I’m just a dying man afraid of the dark.”
7. McCabe and Mrs. Miller: but weaker on re-viewing.
8. Coogan;s Bluff: made in NYC — does this count as a Western? The fade-out from the top of the Pan Am Building would now be censored by Homeland Security!
9. Rio Bravo;
10. Hud; The Horse Soldiers, on war’s implacable thirst for young blood.
In conclusion, the best of the genre films — Westerns, Screwball Comedies, Noir, even Musicals — remain remarkably, embarrassingly, drastically underrated. Art, like politics, is never simply a question of sending a message…
Most of the greats have been mentioned already, with good reasons for them, so I will just add Mel Brook’s Blazing Saddles (“welcome to our new sheriff” – for example) to provide us with a laugh – so that we don’t take the western too seriously. How the West was Won had all the stars, but was a bit on the long side – a contender? How about Magnificent Seven – my pic for best Samurai movie.
@BETSY ARON – thanks for the detailed account…. and especially The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly, absolutely true.
SOYBEAN
All of these discussions regarding Ford, Hawks, Mann, Sturges, Peckinpah, Eastwood etc. compelled me to take a fresh look at the Westerns in my DVD collection ( I have many ). I tried to pick out the cream of the crop and found it quite futile. I flipped and flopped and eventually just gave up. I would like to hear what people here think are the greatest Westerns ever made. There are so many that I would rather not turn this into an endless list of every Western put on film. Please list what you consider the top five in this genre but feel free to change your mind and post again, and of course feel free to comment. Excellent! (I’m sure this will turn into a free for all anyway )
Greatest Westerns Of All Time
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5) ?