Few genres have ever dominated theaters the way that the Western genre did for much of the early to mid-1900s. While the genre fell off in popularity in the latter half of the century, Westerns have played an important role in the history of film. Because of this, it comes as no surprise that when the AFI top 10 Westerns of all-time list was revealed, only one of the entries, Unforgiven, was released in the last 50 years.
The list features John Wayne classics like Stagecoach and The Searchers, enduring audience favorites from the 1950s such as Shane and High Noon, and more recent movies that capture the gritty and violent reality of life in the Wild West like Unforgiven and The Wild Bunch.
Cat Ballou
The Western comedy Cat Ballou follows a young woman named Catherine "Cat" Ballou as she hires a drunken gunslinger to protect her father and his ranch. When the man fails, she takes matters into her own hands by becoming an outlaw in order to seek revenge on those responsible for killing her father.
The movie plays off of other famous Westerns such as Shane, using the conventions of the popular genre for comedic effect. The film uses a fun tone, musical framing device, and great performances from Jane Fonda and Lee Marvin to establish itself as a great, if unconventional, Western.
Stagecoach
The oldest film to make the list, Stagecoach follows a group of strangers from different backgrounds as they ride together in a stagecoach through dangerous Apache land. The group gets an unexpected new member when they are forced to pick up escaped criminal Ringo Kid.
Stagecoach is one of the most influential Westerns ever made as it showed the potential of the genre, elevating beyond popcorn entertainment and using the genre to present a well-constructed character-driven film. The movie also helped turn John Wayne into the biggest star in the genre's history.
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
McCabe & Mrs. Miller is about a greedy gambler, that the locals mistake for a gunslinger, who arrives in a simple Western town and shakes up the local economy by opening his own brothel. When the local mining company demands to buy out his business, he must figure out how to live up to the rumors about him.
Described as an anti-Western, McCabe & Mrs. Miller subverts most of the genre expectations, focusing on a cowardly gambler having gunfights in the snow rather than the typical white-hat lawman in the high noon desert. The film presents a darker and grittier version of the Wild West than audiences were used to seeing, one more rooted in history than mythology.
Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid
The Western classic Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid revolves around the titular duo's attempts to evade being killed by a posse of lawmen. Butch and Sundance flee to Bolivia and try to go straight but eventually get drawn back into robbery.
The film benefits from screenwriting legend William Goldman's outstanding script that captures the depth and nuance of the outlaws. Additionally, the chemistry between Paul Newman and Robert Redford helps make the central relationship believable and endearing, helping the film become one of the highest-grossing Westerns of all time.
The Wild Bunch
As the era of Western dominance at theaters came to a close, movies like The Wild Bunch began embodying the closing of the chapter. The film revolves around a gang of outlaws who try to adjust to their new reality shortly after the turn of the century.
The Wild Bunch is notable for its realistic and graphic depiction of violence in the Wild West. Rather than presenting a Hollywood version of the West, the film shows the brutal reality of criminals doing whatever it takes to stay alive. To capture this chaos and brutality, director Sam Peckinpah uses a frenetic editing style that endues the film with a frenetic energy that helps make The Wild Bunch one of the best Westerns ever made.
Red River
The Western drama Red River follows a rancher and his adopted adult son as they attempt to conduct a cattle drive from Texas to Kansas. However, tensions begin to rise between father and son as the drive proves to be difficult and they do not see eye to eye about how the drive is being managed.
Given the nature of the story, the film is filled with gorgeous shots of the picturesque scenery. The leading performances by John Wayne and Montgomery Clift believably capture the nuance and depth of a father-son dynamic that is in flux as the son tries to earn his father's respect.
Unforgiven
The most recently released film to make the list, 1992's Unforgiven is a Revisionist Western about an aging gunslinger who is living as a farmer but leaves behind his quiet life to return to the outlaw life when a prostitute offers a huge reward to anyone who kills the man that disfigured her.
Like other Revisionist Westerns, Unforgiven challenges the simplistic good-and-bad perception of the West by presenting moral outlaws and wicked lawmen. The film helped cement this approach as the modern expectation of a Western with many recent Westerns following this grittier formula. Unforgiven won the Oscar for Best Picture, earning a reputation as the best Western of the 90s.
Shane
In the Western classic Shane, the titular gunslinger with a mysterious past who is hired to help protect a ranch from a cattle baron who is trying to intimidate the ranchers to clear out of the valley so he can claim all of the land for himself.
Shane skillful presents the tension and violence of the Wild West in an entertaining and compelling way without endorsing or glorifying it. This is embodied in the character of Shane as he is a skilled fighter who is willing to use his violent talents only when necessary. It is a thoughtful, tense, and well-crafted Western.
High Noon
Taking place in real-time, High Noon tells the story of Sheriff Will Kane as he races to put together a crew to help him stand up against an outlaw who is coming into town to get revenge on Kane for sending him to prison. When no one will help, Kane must choose between running away or facing the criminal alone.
The film challenged the societal views in America as well as audience expectations of a Western. Trading in archetypes for realistic depictions of conflicted characters, the film portrayed the central hero in a relatable way that has resonated with viewers for decades.
The Searchers
17 years after John Ford directed John Wayne in his breakout film, Stagecoach, the two reteamed in 1956 for arguably the greatest Western ever made, The Searchers. The film follows a gruff and violent man who spends years trying to find his niece after she is taken by a group of Comanche warriors.
The sprawling epic is a compelling character study in a man who has bounced around from war to war, always in search of another battle to fight. Confronting the brutal violence and racism of the frontier, the movie captures the Wild West, warts and all.