Top 10 Westerns?

Started by Adam0199, April 01, 2003, 08:25:01 PM

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freakerdude

in no order:

The Searchers
Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid
Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
High Plains Drifter
True Grit
Two Mules for Sister Sara
Rio Bravo
The Magnificent Seven
Hang 'Em High
Tombstone

and I'll add Paint Your Wagon
MC Pee Pants

Stefen

So I finally saw The Good, The Bad and the Ugly for the first time this weekend. EPIC. Some of the ADR work was atrocious, but on blu-ray, it really was a stunning and epic film. Tuco was such a weasel and Angel Eyes was just a ruthless character. Loved it. That ending was so good. And the music!

So where should I go next? I'm pretty much a western virgin so I'm open to pretty much anything. I want to stick to things I can find on blu-ray. I like the grittiness of the Leone stuff. Is anything of his going to compare to GTBATU or is that pretty much the pinnacle? A lot of other westerns, like the John Wayne stuff seems kind of tame, but I'll give tamer stuff a try if it's worth it.
Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

squints

Once upon a time in the west is the leone pinnacle for sure.
If you haven't seen that, start there.

From Ford i'd say, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence is one of my favorites, John Wayne in his later years.
My Darling Clementine is awesome, it is the Wyatt Earp story with Henry Fonda as Earp and Victor Mature is great as Doc Holiday (much better than fucking val kilmer)

From Anthony Mann, The Man From Laramie and The Naked Spur are both great, with Jimmy Stewart

High Noon is another one of my favorites, it has some of the best edited and tensest sequences i've ever seen.

The Wild Bunch from Peckinpah....

hopefully you've seen the proposition and unforgiven...the best westerns from the past couple of decades.

"The myth by no means finds its adequate objectification in the spoken word. The structure of the scenes and the visible imagery reveal a deeper wisdom than the poet himself is able to put into words and concepts" – Friedrich Nietzsche

Gold Trumpet

Oh, I love Westerns..

For me, Leone's masterpiece is Once Upon a Time in the West. I genuinely love that movie and am more cool on his other films. In his time, he was a stylistic counterpart to other Western filmmakers. Later in his career, he developed more appropriate storytelling to fit his interests, but when you watch a film like A Fistful of Dollars and compare it to Yojimbo, there are many shortcomings. Some people believe in him fully. I can't.

I would consider looking into Sam Peckinpah. In my opinion, he understood the right level of realism and myth and was able to gracefully combine both while attesting to awesome themes as well. However, because of a turbulent life, he only made a few great films. The Wild Bunch is in my top 3 for favorite films. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid was afforded a good restoration and is a very good Western drama.

John Wayne wise, watch The Searchers or Red River. The former is already bandied about and deserves no more commentary from me; the latter is a stark Western drama that predated a lot of the 1960s advances by focusing more on realism and grittiness. For the first 30 years, Westerns in Hollywood were more about myth and less about realism. However, if you have to consider Hollywood Westerns, My Darling Clementine is one of the more charming Westerns out there. I just relax to that movie whenever it's on. The grace of the movie should not be diminished.

I also recommend this movie highly, but watch Hombre with Paul Newman. It's based on an Elmore Leonard novel and carries over a lot of dialogue nuance from Leonard's writing. In many ways, it was an anti-Western when it was released in the 1960s, but the writing, story structure, and interesting ideological standpoint makes it stand out still today.

The Proposition gets nods as a great modern Western, but for me, its soulless and cliche. The production and filmmaking is what makes it feel a little relevant.

modage

Stagecoach
High Noon
Red River
The Searchers
Rio Bravo
The Good The Bad & The Ugly
Once Upon A Time In The West
Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid
The Wild Bunch
Unforgiven
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

OrHowILearnedTo

I really like Gunfight at O.K. Corral. It's very entertaining and I find that it moves at a much quicker pace than many of the westerns made around it's time (1950's). Kinda melodramatic, but a lot of fun and the gunfights are pretty great. It also features a really young Dennis Hopper.

squints

I just watched High Plains Drifter for the first time like three days ago.
It is INSANE. Eastwood just rolls into town and starts killing people and raping women and just generally being a degenerate violent asshole but then the townsfolk ask him to save the day, its kind of Eastwood taking the character he created with Leone and directed it himself.
I'd totally recommend the next two you watch be Once Upon a Time.. and High Plains Drifter
"The myth by no means finds its adequate objectification in the spoken word. The structure of the scenes and the visible imagery reveal a deeper wisdom than the poet himself is able to put into words and concepts" – Friedrich Nietzsche

wilder

Sort of a Western/Noir hybrid, and maybe you've already seen it - but John Sturges' Bad Day at Black Rock is pretty great. I also echo Once Upon a Time in the West and McCabe & Mrs. Miller. Supposedly a Bad Day blu-ray is in the pipeline but who knows how far off, so you may want to wait, and there are whispers that The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind are going to be Criterioned, too.

Pubrick

We've all seen Bad Day at Black Rock because PTA told us he learned to direct from listening to a laserdisc commentary on Bad Day at Black Rock and so we all watched Bad Day at Black Rock.
under the paving stones.

samsong

will second the love for the man who shot liberty valance and also mention she wore a yellow ribbon, my personal favorite of ford's westerns.  take your pick with him, really, but those two haven't been getting much love and definitely without good reason.  stagecoach is underappreciated here too.  that one is on blu to boot.

i find high noon to be a boring piece of shit.  and i also think once upon a time in the west is leone's best over the good, the bad, and the ugly.  red river's great. mccabe & mrs. miller and the wild bunch are essential.  dead man is the last truly great western.

forty guns is one of my favorite westerns and probably my favorite sam fuller movie.  if you can find johnny guitar, that's the best of the bunch.

has anyone seen whity?  i haven't but it's a western from fassbinder.  sounds promising and depressing.

RegularKarate

I second most of the movies already mentioned (I studied High Noon in highschool and find it a snooze).

I also love The Outlaw Josey Wales.  It's a good lead-in to Unforgiven.

I'm in the minority finding Good the Bad, and the Ugly better than Once Upon a Time in the West (which I also love).  I think it's just because it's more exciting and Bronson is a little silly for me.

Stefen

Thanks for all the suggestions, fellas. These have been added to my queue. It's going to be a fun spring.  :yabbse-cool:
Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.