What are the best Wild West Movies I've missed?

[Andymac84]

I was wondering which great Western movies I've missed.. I've seen some of the 90's-2000's flicks, but not all I suppose..
I liked:

Young Guns 1+2
Wyatt Earp
The Assassination of Jesse James...
3:10 to Yuma
The Quick and the Dead
Ned Kelly (not a Wild West one but cool, too)
Dead Men
Dances with Wolves

I also know Tombstone, but I have to re-watch it again sometime. So which classics should I definately watch, too??

 

[dbuck]

Sooo many to choose from. Here's a few.

The Searchers
Rio Bravo
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
A Fistful of Dollars (actually the Man with No Name trilogy)
Once Upon a Time in the West
The Magnificent Seven
High Plains Drifter
the Outlaw Josey Wales
Stagecoach
High Noon

I could probably go on for a week.

 

[Andymac84]

Sounds good. Maybe we can order them through the decades. 90's, 80's,...
Probably we start with the 90's first. As I've grown up with those movies.

 

[Psicorp7]

After you have watched all of those (Man with No Name series is GREAT!) watch...

Blazing Saddles
&
Rango

Great send-ups of classic westerns.

 

[jlee562]

Sooo many to choose from. Here's a few.

The Searchers
Rio Bravo
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
A Fistful of Dollars (actually the Man with No Name trilogy)
Once Upon a Time in the West
The Magnificent Seven
High Plains Drifter
the Outlaw Josey Wales
Stagecoach
High Noon

I could probably go on for a week.

This is a darn good list.

I'd add :

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (my personal fave)
The Wild Bunch
True Grit (old and new are both good in their own ways)
The Cowboys (a later John Wayne film)
Unforgiven

And yeah Tombstone is way better than Wyatt Earp. I actually attempted to watch it the other day, but it only reminded me of how much better Tombstone is.

 

[Axlotl]

Some recent ones I've really enjoyed are "Appaloosa" and "Sweetwater", both with Ed Harris.

 

[dascoyne]

I'll add:
My Darling Clementine
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Silverado

 

[dascoyne]

Firefly.

 

[VilleLeskinen]

I would recommend these two newer westerns:

Blueberry (US title seems to be Renegade) (2004)
and
The Proposition (2005)

 

[Solo4114]

To do a bit of grouping here...

Classic Hollywood Westerns:

The Searchers
Rio Bravo
Stagecoach (the original, that is, not the Peckinpah remake)
High Noon
The Man who Shot Liberty Valance
The Magnificent Seven (and Seven Samurai)
Silverado (I'd say it's an homage to classic westerns, even if it's made in the 80s)

Spaghetti Westerns (these are less "classic" and probably are a bit closer to what we think of now as westerns. They're less abotu cowboys, and more about gunslingers, if that makes sense. they're a bit more gritty)

Fistfull of Dollars (you should also REALLY see Yojimbo and Last Man Standing, since Yojimbo is the source material for Fistfull, and Last Man Standing is the gangster update)
For A Few Dollars More
The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
Hang 'em High (not a true spaghetti western, in that it wasn't Italian-made, but it was capitalizing on the same feel)
Once Upon a Time in the West



Revisionist Westerns (these tend to take the classic themes and play with them a bit, sometimes a LOT):

True Grit
The Outlaw Josey Wales
The Wild Bunch
Unforgiven
Little Big Man
Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid
Back to the Future Part III (heh)
Django

Most of your revisionist westerns were made in the late 60s and onward. You don't see a lot of classic westerns being made after that point. Westerns themselves were more of a phenomenon from the 30s through the 50s, peaking in the 50s. It's that old style of western, including the "high noon" thing, the righteous hero, the cowboys vs. Indians thing, the black-and-white morality, and the highly sanitized violence that much of the revisionist westerns try to turn on their heads.

 

[dascoyne]

Thanks for the treatment, Solo!

I would add that The Searchers is one film that straddles the era of the revisionist western. John Wayne, for once, after returning from the Civil War is a weathered man whose morality remains disturbingly uncertain, unlike his character in earlier films. He finds his niece who was kidnapped as a child living among the Comanches as a young lady. Though he's searched for years he's just as likely to kill her as to take her home.

Earlier in the film he shoots the eyes out of a dead Comanche and says that, by their belief, the man's spirit will be unable to enter the spirit-land and is doomed to wander forever between the winds. It's also a powerful metaphor for his own soul. By the end he remains lost and wanders off alone.

 

[cayman shen]

Shane! Plus everything Solo4114 said

 

[Andymac84]

That's a lot of movies to watch great you guys gathered the best of them. Now it's way better for myself to pick out the diamonds of the genre which are all listed above.:thumbsup

Ah yeah, I've seen Django, too. This was also one of the greater ones. Especially the soundtrack.

 

[Probe Droid]

Watch some of the Ford/Wayne cavalry flix, too, like She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Fort Apache. Essentials.

There's a secret to The Searchers, which most people miss. Watch carefully.

 

[dascoyne]

Watch some of the Ford/Wayne cavalry flix, too, like She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Fort Apache. Essentials.

There's a secret to The Searchers, which most people miss. Watch carefully.

do you mean...

Spoiler

That the niece might be Ethan's daughter?

 

[Probe Droid]

do you mean... Spoiler:

Yep, that's it.

 

[jlee562]

Also: Paint Your Wagon.

 

[Krel]

"The Angel and the Bad Man" with the Duke.
"El Dorado", it was the first movie my Father took me to see at the show.
"Winchester 73" a different kind of role for Jimmy Stewart. Also Rock Hudson as an Indian Chief, and Tony Curtis as a Calvary Soldier in early roles.
You pretty much can't go wrong with any Randolph Scott western.

David.

 

[NoTsOsErIoUs]

I thought Open Range (2003) was pretty good.
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005) is a fantastic modern slow-burn Western imho.

 

[leafman]

I'll add Two Mules for Sister Sara as another good Eastwood western to watch.