All westerns aren't technically action/adventure films, but this seems the logical place for this. I realize that they seem to have fallen out of favor recently, but there's plenty of great ones. What are your favorite westerns?

My favorite is "Little Big Man." Besides covering an enormous amount of historical ground/characters, it was definitely one of the first revisionist westerns made. Some people have a problem with it because it mixes heartfelt tragedy with Monty Pythonesque comedy, but that's a plus in my book. It IS episodic, but that just allows it to cover so many emotions and subjects. Besides, Chief Dan George has to give one of the all-time-great performances.

There's plenty of other westerns to mention: "One-Eyed Jacks", "The Wild Bunch", "Red River", "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", "The Outlaw Josey Wales" (Chief Dan George again), "Unforgiven", "The Big Country", "Dances With Wolves", "The Searchers", etc, etc. What do you think?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mark f,

"The Magnificent Seven" is by far my favorite Western. I also like "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly," which was the first Western I ever saw, made to watch by my father and discovered to my surprise that I liked Westerns! I was a real girly girl, so I thought I would hate it.

Other favorites are "Cool Hand Luke" and "Once Upon a Time in the West" and I don't know if this counts or not, but I have to say I really liked "Westworld"

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Originally posted by KT:
"The Magnificent Seven" is by far my favorite Western....I don't know if this counts or not, but I have to say I really liked "Westworld"

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KT, I like "The Magnificent Seven" a lot too, but I didn't mention it here because I already discussed it in the Peter Jackson thread at directors (believe it or not.) The fact that it is your favorite explains your love of "Westworld", or is it just a Yul Brynner thing? Although sci-fi, "Westworld" definitely qualifies as a western.

I appreciate your pick of "Cool Hand Luke"( incredible cast), although it's not really a western. Do you remember the car-washing scene?; that should make it clear that it's a modern-day prison camp film. Then again, I guess that "Hud" and "The Last Picture Show" are modern westerns. "Cool Hand Luke" seems like a modern-day (60s, at least) version of a 30s Warner Brothers chain-gang flick.

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I appreciate your pick of "Cool Hand Luke"( incredible cast), although it's not really a western.

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Yeah, you're right ... I guess it just feels like a Western to me. Like the atmosphere of the prison camp was the same feel as the westerns. So I always sort of lump it in my head with westerns.

Easily the best Western I've ever seen was The Long Riders, a movie about the James/Younger gang starring members of the Carradine, Quaid and Keach families. Very brutal and real for the time.

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0081071/

It was especially memorable because it was my first rated-R movie, and there was a guy smoking a pipe in the back of the theater, adding to the atmosphere. Great flick!

I also liked The Magnificent Seven. It's up there at the top of my list. However, I think Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is my favorite.

But if you consider Blazing Saddles a Western, then Blazing Saddles it is!

"We can't afford to lose no horses! Send a couple of them n**gers."

K-Dog

Good call on Little Big Man Mark! When I watch this movie, I can't help but think, "Did this movie inspire Robert Zemekis to make Forrest Gump?" The two stories are very similar when you look at them. Both movies portray a guy experiencing all aspects of the world around him while not understaning them all the time. Both settings deal with a time of great change in America as well. Anyway, back to the subject.
My favorites are:

Dances With Wolves
The Cowboys
The Magnificent Seven
Tombstone
Unforgiven
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Maverick
Silverado
The Searchers

I'm not a big Western fan, but I think that "Unforgiven" is in a class by itself. Or to paraphrase Bum Phillips when commenting about Earl Campbell, "if it's not in a class by itself, it doesn't take long for roll call."

Well, since no one has mentioned them, A Fistful of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More. Both are classics and for me, it is tough to say which in the "Man With No Name"(even though he had a name?!)trilogy is best. I think I love them all equally. Also, Pale Rider is decent. I just watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for the first time recently and was quite pleasantly surprised. Tonight I think I will be playing a drinking game to The Outlaw Josey Wales, take a shot every time Clint spits!

Barbarosa ( Schepisi, 1982, Grade: A-)

This gets my vote as one of the best westerns, AND one of the best fairy tales, the best Willie Nelson and Gary Busey performances, the best Billy D. Wittliff script, the best western unreleased on DVD, etc. I love everything about this film. It's one of the most realistic, intense, hilarious, naturalistic and original films ever made. The only westerns I will CATEGORICALLY say are better are Little Big Man and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Yeah, that means it's up there with The Wild Bunch, Once Upon A Time in the West, The Searchers, Dances With Wolves, Unforgiven, The Big Country, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, etc. The only westerns I can think of which are almost as underrated are One-Eyed Jacks and The Outlaw Josey Wales.

Oh yeah, BUMP.

One that instantly comes to mind is High Noon with Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. The shots of the ticking clock add so much to the tense build-up. Some others that come to mind are:

The Outlaw Josey Wales
Hang 'Em High
Rio Lobo
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
A Fistful of Dollars
Three Amigos

One of my favorite westerns was on TCM recently. I taped it as it's not on dvd yet. Fritz Lang's 1941 "Western Union" starring Randolph Scott, Robert Young, Dean Jagger, Virginia Gilmore and always a favorite, Chill Wills. An early Technicolor western, a simple story of the telegraph being built across the west. Great performances all around, this more than deserves a transfer to dvd.

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Originally posted by crazed:
One of my favorite westerns was on TCM recently. I taped it as it's not on dvd yet. Fritz Lang's 1941 "Western Union" starring Randolph Scott, Robert Young, Dean Jagger, Virginia Gilmore and always a favorite, Chill Wills. An early Technicolor western, a simple story of the telegraph being built across the west. Great performances all around, this more than deserves a transfer to dvd.

Yeah, that's a fun movie. Have you seen Lang's other westerns? Both The Return of Frank James (1940) and Rancho Notorious (1952) are color westerns with lots of offbeat touches. The former is a sequel to Jesse James (1939), and it's better, and the latter is probably even more whack than Duel in the Sun, although it might not be as insane as Johnny Guitar, which came out two years later.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mark f,

I haven't seen Lang's other westerns, though I now want to. It had been so many years (more than I want to recall) since I'd last seen "Western Union", that I had forgotten or never knew the Lang connection. I was actually surprised to hear his name associated with that film, so now my curiosity is peaked for wanting to see those other westerns.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Unforgiven
The Wildbunch
Stagecoach
Tombstone
The Searchers

I don't recall it recieving good reviews but I enjoyed Disney's western fantasy "Tall Tale: The Unbelievable Adventures of Pecos Bill". I'm sure someone could have done better with the premise and the collection of myths & legends therein but I liked it all the same.

I know it's not a western but "Last of the Dogmen" has a western feel in parts. It's an offbeat adventure that might have been better without the narration.

Last of the Dogmen is MOST-definitely a western, AND one of the BEST in the last 10 years.

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Originally posted by mark f:
Last of the Dogmen is MOST-definitely a western, AND one of the BEST in the last 10 years.

And now I just ordered it on dvd having found my vhs copy too worn for the play. Well I have wanted to see it for awhile.

Another sci-fi western to accompany "Westword" would be "Back to the Future Part 3". Wasn't there a sci-fi western from the 1960s or am I foggy minded?

I enjoyed "Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning". A goth horror western? Werewolf western, I have to love it.

The magnificent Seven is one I never get tired
of! Never seen it on the big screen though!
A fist full of dollars, For a few more dollars and the Good,Bad and the Ugly also get my vote.
The best for atmoshpere, beauty, action, epic scale and beautiful score though has NO equal,
That has got to be Once Upon A Time In The West
A real classic! Fonda and Bronson at their best!

My favorite Western is one that I don't think was mentioned on this thread. That would be Robert Aldrich's revisionist oater, ULZANA'S RAID from '72 that starred a grizzled Burt Reynolds. The film was an allegory for Vietnam and the supporting cast included a very callow (and very good) Bruce Davison, a very underrated actor.

Whether COOL HAND LUKE is an oater or nor, I don't think that film holds up. Another Paul Newman western that is among my favorites of that genre is HUD, which is a modern day western that also starred Melvyn Douglas, Patricia Neal and Brandon De Wilde.

THE HIRED HAND, directed by Peter Fonda, is from the early seventies and it is a beautiful, almost elegiacal film where Peter starred along with the always great Warren Oates and Verna Bloom.

And I also liked LONELY ARE THE BRAVE, set in the dying days of the West. This one starred Kirk Douglas, with good supporting work from Walter Matthau and a very young Gena Rowlands.