The Greatest Western Movie Ever

I saw the Outlaw Josey Wales on HDNET or HDMovies this weekend (dvr'ed it). It was an excellent film. I really liked Unforgiven but haven't seen it in years. Need to put that back on my netflix.

Of the spaghetti westerns, I liked "For a Few Dollars More" more than GB&U.
 
Josey Wales is great but The Searchers is one of the best movies of any genre. I would throw Lonely are the Brave in my favorite list of westerns even though it's not old west.
 
Its The Searchers.

I've never understood the love some people have for Tombstone. I like it fine, but its just good and not great, IMO. Doesn't really belong with some of the others mentioned here.
 
"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly."

"You see in this world there's two kinds of people my friend - those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig."
 
So many great westerns, after reading this thread, I want to see some of them again.
And I have decided to add "The Man who Shot Liberty Valance" and "The Magnificent Seven" to my list. But I'm still topping it with "Once Upon a Time in the West."
 
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Saturday night The Good Bad & Ugly, For a Few Dollars More and Fistfull of Dollars is on channel 254 on Direct TV. I think that is AMC.
 
"How is it on stains?" Another classic line from one of the greats (but not greatest) westerns.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is hands down the best.
 
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence is great, but it lacks grandeur, which is to say that too much of it happens in doors on on the movie lot. It has the feel of an episode of Bonanza. My older friends who love westerns always bah humbug me on this point, and I do trust the opinion of an older afficionado than a younger as those old guys grew up watching westerns all of the time (TV, matinees, TV series, etc.). The old timers start talking about particular episodes of Yancey Derringer and you know they got their bona fides out of the holster.

A few others that are less known but still really good:

40 Guns (Samuel Fuller -- a bit odd)
The Tall T
Seven Men From Now (both Budd Boeticher/Randolph Scott films and both simply excellent)
Ride the High Country (the other great Peckinpah Western, also with Randolph Scott)
The Naked Spur (really, any of the Anthony Mann westerns are pretty stout, especially the ones with Jimmy Stewart (Man from Laramie, Winchester '76, the Far Country, etc.).
Hud (perhaps no more a western than The Last Picture Show, perhaps something more)
 
I know it's a war movie but I always thought Kelly's Heroes was basically a western set in WWII Europe. Right down to the showdown with the German Tiger tank at the end of the movie with the spaghetti western theme music playing.
 
The Outlaw Josey Wales
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
High Noon
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
The Magnificent Seven
The Wild Bunch
Unforgiven
Dances With Wolves
Little Big Man
The Long Riders
Tombstone
A Man Called Horse

Those are some of my favorites
 
I've seen "The Searchers" many times, including in a real movie theater at it's initial release.

But, although I find it otherwise an excellent Western, I find the final part of the story lacking after all the great buildup.

The best part of the movie is the search and, of course, it's called "The Searchers."

It's not entitled something like "The Gunfight at the OK Corral," so maybe a big climax isn't promised or needed and I shouldn't require one.

Perhaps I should be satisfied with the trail following, Indian scouting, wilderness wandering, landscape looking, sandstormy seeking and sustained searching, because all that stuff is really good.

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When Ethan recognizes his long lost niece, Debbie, in that kidnapping Scar's teepee, the dramatic tension is enormous.

What's gonna happen next?

I've just never thought the ending as John Ford made it was good enough for or as memorable as the rest of the story.

Maybe, if John Wayne had killed Natalie Wood, as he considered doing, or if he'd shot a few more Indians or........something.

I don't know.

I really don't.

That's the way Ford saw it and he's the master movie maker.

Perhaps, John Wayne could have been killed in the act of saving her, but as Buddy Holly duely noted, "That'll Be The Day."

You know, then she could have been brought back home by Jeffery Hunter and that final scene where Ethan disappears out the door of the homestead could have been done like they do with the dead heroes, villains and victims in the closing moments on TV's "Cold Case" series.

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I don't know, the characters and the story's buildup are great. but I 'm always let down by the way the movie goes after that teepee scene and not necessarily because the reunion turns out happy.

So shoot me.

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Yeah, I see that.

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After Lawrence Sullivan Ross "rescued" Cynthia Ann Parker from the Comanches and brought her "home" she pined away in loneliness and despair, never seeing her Indian family or her beloved half-breed children or her home on the plains again.

That's how that actually went down.

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Ford made it, people dig it and I can leave his great work alone, appreciating it for what it is.

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Tuco: [trying to read a note] "See you soon, id... ” "id... ” "ids... ”
Man With No Name: [taking the note] "Idiots". It's for you.

For me it's the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Followed closely by Rio Bravo.

McLintock! was pretty good.
 
I'm going to agree with buckhorn about The Man who Shot Liberty Valence, because while it is undeniably a great story, the western scenery, the grandeur of the landscape so important to so many movies, is lacking.
I also agree about The Searchers. How is makes the top of so many lists is beyond me, but it always does.
 
I can see the criticism of Liberty Valance and hadn't thought about its lack of exterior locations. The story is enough to keep it near the top for me. I didn't like it that much when I first saw it, but was blown away one night in a hotel seeing it on TV. I'd never noticed that the irony of the title is repeated in many different ways throughout the movie.

In the classroom scene where the students, young and old, are asked about America, you have a woman proudly talking about the power of the vote and a black man talking about how all men are equal. Women couldn't vote back then and we know the situation of the ex slaves.

It's also interesting how Wayne and Marvin (as Valance) keep eyeballing each other in near showdowns. Wayne doesn't just gun the bad guy down because their interests have not crossed.

The use of the cactus flower at the beginning and end of the movie is very strong and evocative.

Not that anyone here was knocking the movie, I guess I just got excited thinking about it again.

The Searchers is, like Citizen Kane, a film school favorite. Both excellent movies, but you wonder if they are sustained at the very top of so many lists just because of the ease with which film students/scholars can break down their elements. Kane is a landmark in style. Searchers drives home every theme common to the genre. You could write endless papers about either one.
 
along the lines of the searchers....

if you like that movie, you should read
"9 years among the indians" by herman lehman
and "captured" by scot zesch
The Link

pretty cool stuff about central texans abducted
 
I second the Silverado mention. It might not be the best but it is definitely the most underrated. it has an ensemble cast of:
Danny Glover
Kevin Kline
Scott Glenn
Brian Dennehey
Kevin Costner
Jeff Goldblum
 
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