Best Movies: Westerns

Don't forget 'Posse Cat,' released Jan. 30, 1954.
The ranch cook tells Tom that he won't be getting any more food unless he gets rid of Jerry. After teaming with Jerry for half the food, they stage a fight that gets rid of Jerry. Tom is fed, but double-crossses Jerry.
It clocks in at 6 minutes, 28 seconds.
Features a great opening song.

 

Funny, the movie I remember didn't have John Wayne except in my head.  I found it here ... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044205/

 

The Magnificent Seven



Shane
For A Few Dollars More
Rio Bravo
High Noon
Open Range
Quigley Down Under
Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid
Tombstone
The Sacketts
True Grit
Silverado
Monte Walsh (although the TNT remake with Tom Selleck adds an unneeded happy ending)
Tom Horn
Crossfire Trail
Cowboy Up (stars Kiefer Sutherland, completely different from the unwatchable Cowboy Way he made with Woody from Cheers)

I hated Unforgiven and the Young Guns movies.

 

the searchers
my darling clementine

can't go wrong with john ford.

 

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
Once Upon a Time in the West

 

It's not a movie, but I love the Lonesome Dove miniseries.

 

I pimp it on here all of the time, but Once Upon A Time In The West is not only the best western ever, it's probably the best movie ever made. It's the Sergio Leone movie after Good, Bad, And The Ugly. Both Empire Strikes Back (in the way the music accompanies the plot, Lucas and director Irvin Kirschner have said they lifted Leone's technique directly from Once Upon A Time In The West) and Kill Bill owe a heavy debt to the movie.

All I can say is it's grandly bad ass. You definitely have to watch it twice, though, to pick up on things.

Leone's Fistful of Dynamite is also interesting, in addition of course, to all of the Eastwood films. And the much better known Once Upon A Time In America is a quasi-sequel at least in theme to Once Upon A Time In The West.

Others in the pantheon ...

Wild Bunch -- also one of the greatest movies ever made
Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid -- Once Upon A Time In The West, Wild Bunch and Butch Cassidy were all released within two months of each other, damn.
Outlaw Josey Wales
Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid
Major Dundee
Pale Rider
High Plains Drifter
Johnny Guitar (saw some of it the other night, pretty good)
The Ballad Of Cable Hogue
Wyatt Earp -- thought this was better than Tombstone, which I think was out simultaneously
Wagons East (kidding)

-- probably several others I'm forgetting

Clearly my preference for westerns definitely veers into Leone, Peckinpaugh, Eastwood territory. Though count me among those who thinks Unforgiven is overrated.

It's sometimes characterized as a western, but Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia is worth seeing in a holy shit-that-movie-is-fucked-up kind of way. Definitely influenced Tarantino and Rodriguez.

Westerns I need to see are the myriad "real" Italian spaghetti westerns (violent as hell), The Professionals, and I've somehow never seen Magnificant Seven, though I've seen some of the Seven Samurai.

There's several pre-1960 classics I've never seen. Nearly every western I've seen was made in the modern era. I've tried to make myself sit and watch The Searchers, but I get bored.

 

Stagecoach
The Good The Bad and The Ugly
Hang 'em High
Outlaw Josey Wales
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Unforgiven
McClintock!
Support Your Local Sherrif
Rio Bravo
My Name Is Nobody

 

Outlaw Josey Wales
Tombstone
Pale Rider

Does Blazing Saddles count?

And am I the only one who liked Open Range, solely for the presence of Duvall, and a pretty cool ending gunfight.

 

Back to the Future Part III

 

A lot of great choices here. I don't think anyone's mentioned these ones:

"A Fistful of Dollars" -- the first Eastwood-Leone spaghetti western.
"Red River" -- another classic John Wayne oater.
"How the West Was Won" -- everybody and their brother was in this flick, including the Duke.

I'll also nominate a couple of underrated Glenn Ford classics -- "The Fastest Gun Alive" and "3:10 to Yuma."