Here's every entry in John Ford's Cavalry Trilogy of movies, ranked worst to best. John Wayne was one of the biggest movie stars of all time and is most often linked to the Western genre. Some of the most famous John Wayne Westerns s include Stagecoach, Howard Hawk's Rio Bravo and True Grit, the latter of which won Wayne his only Academy Award for Best Actor. Outside of Westerns, other famous Wayne movies include The Quiet Man and cop thriller McQ.

John Wayne didn't always get along with his directors - such as the time he reportedly punched out John Huston during production on The Barbarian And The Geisha - but two of his most frequent collaborators were Howard Hawks and John Ford. He made a dozen movies with the latter and The Searchers is often considered their crowning achievement. They also made the Cavalry Trilogy together, consisting of Fort Apache, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon and Rio Grande.

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All three were hits back in the day, though Ford hadn't necessarily set out to make a trilogy when he made Fort Apache. Here's every entry in the trilogy, ranked worst to best.

rio grande cast

Rio Grande (1950)

Rio Grande is the last of the trilogy with John Wayne possibly reprising his role as an older Kirby Yorke from Fort Apache - though the film doesn't totally make it clear if the two stories are linked. Rio Grande sees the Union officer training recruits when his estranged son joins the ranks. Soon after Yorke's equally estranged wife Kathleen (Maureen O'Hara) appears to take their son home, but Kirby and Kathleen start falling back in love when he's ordered on a potential suicide mission.

Ford stated he didn't particularly want to make Rio Grande, but the studio made him after concerns his next project The Quiet Man would be a failure. The movie is usually considered the least of the trilogy, but it's still a solid Western in its own right. It features Ford's usual themes, there's great chemistry between Wayne and O'Hara and for a film made as an assignment, it still has a lot of heart.

She Wore A Yellow Ribbon (1949)

She Wore A Yellow Ribbon cast John Wayne as Nathan Cutting Brittles, a US Cavalry Captain nearing retirement. Thanks to the movie's beautiful technicolor photography and prominent use of Monument Valley, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon is easily the prettiest of the Cavalry Trilogy. The film also features Wayne's own personal favorite performance, and despite playing a character who was much older than he was during production, he gives a moving turn. John Ford's She Wore A Yellow Ribbon is a touch too sentimental at times, but it's still great.

Fort Apache (1948)

Fort Apache cast Henry Fonda as Lt. Col. Owen Thursday, who is a thinly veiled take on George Armstrong Custer. Thursday takes command of a remote outpost but his arrogance and egotism see him clash with Captain York, and his quest for glory sees him lead his men into a bloody battle in the finale.

The first of what became the Cavalry Trilogy, Fort Apache remains one of John Ford's best, and most complex, Westerns. The movie also featured a role for Shirly Temple as Thursday's daughter, and the film is still recognized for being one of the first Westerns to treat its Native American characters with respect and not just as villains. The movie ends on a "print the legend" note, which is a theme Ford and Wayne would return to in 1962's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

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