What's shaking?
I'm doing research on Western's. What is your top 10. If you dont't have a top 10, then best, top 3 or 5 will do.
Peace in the Middle East
wild bunch
good, bad, ugly
rio bravo
In no particular order (off the top of my head):
Once Upon A Time In The West
Man With No Name Trilogy (Fist Full Of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly)
Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid
The Searchers
Shane
The Ox Bow Incident
The Big Country
The Magnificent Seven
Unforgiven
Wild Bunch
Dead Man
McCabe and Mrs. Miller
The Searchers
Lonesome Dove (maybe, I haven't seen it since I was like 12, but I remember it being really great).
Unforgiven
Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Wild Bunch
Pale Rider
Top Gun
Blazing Saddles
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Shane
Dollars trilogy
Dead Man
High Plains Drifter
Unforgiven
Young Guns
Ballad of Little Jo
Gunfight at the OK Corral
Shanghai Noon
Tombstone
Quick and the Dead
blah blah, I just love 'em.
High Plains Drifter is my absolute favourite
then...
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Good the Bad and the Ugly.
Butch and Sundance
in no particular order
The Searchers
Shane
Unforgiven
the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
The Wild Bunch
High Noon
Red River
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
My Darling Clementine
Wild Bunch
Django Kill!
A Bullet for the General
Rio Bravo
Unforgiven
True Grit
Two Mules for Sister Sara
I think Sergio Corbucci's Django series is by far the greatest of westerns.
Back To The Future Part 3 :(
The good the bad and the creamy :oops:
Forgot: Once Upon A Time In The West.
no.
forgot;
tough guys of the prairie
gold for tough guys of the prairie
I've been wanting to see a lot more. Glad somebody made this thread, I won't have to ask for recommendations.
butch cassidy & the sundance kid
mccabe & mrs. miller
rio bravo
the searchers
I'm renting Dead Man from netflix...it should be on it's way soon. That movie looks fucking awesome. I'm gonna make a point to see The Good The Bad and The Ugly too. I can't believe I've never seen that...or The Wild Bunch, I've never seen that either.
I remember seeing this really bad one called True Grit. That's the only western I've seen that I haven't liked.
i consider Dances with Wolves to be a good western.
I think Once Upon a Time in the West is my favorite film.
I saw "Johnny Guitar" about a month or so ago at a theater which was doing a Nicholas Ray retrospective and I really dug that movie. The action isn't that great but I thought Joan Crawford was pretty kick ass and a lot of the dialogue was funny. I'm not really into westerns, but this one I liked.
My fav. western would have to be Once Upon a Time in the West.
The Wild Bunch & any Kurosawa Film :wink:
searchers
man who shot liberty valance
red river
rio bravo
unforgiven
mccabe and mrs. miller
man with no name trilogy
Westerns might be the oldest film genre of all. The Great Train Robbery is now 100 years old.
Top 4:
The Searchers -- one of the greatest last shots of all time, and the film was a huge influence on Spielberg (Close Encounters), Schrader (Hardcore), Scorsese (Taxi Driver).
The Wild Bunch -- a nice, sensitive character study.
McCabe and Mrs. Miller -- Altman at his best.
Unforgiven -- The sheriff played by Gene Hackman says, "This isn't fair, I was building a house," before he gets his head blown off.
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sunpoint.net%2F%7Eshobary%2Fouatitw%2Fharm1.jpg&hash=df42790a19242e4dcf1e6abca84027d12aafb00f)
1. Once Upon A Time in the West[/color][/b][/size] (1969 - Sergio Leone)
2. Unforgiven[/b][/size][/color] (1992 - Clint Eastwood)
3. The Wild Bunch[/b][/color][/size] (1969 - Sam Peckinpah)
4. The Good, the Bad & the Ugly[/b][/color][/size] (1966 - Sergio Leone)
5. Little Big Man[/b][/color][/size] (1970 - Arthur Penn)
6. "Lonesome Dove"[/b][/color][/size] (made-for-TV 1989 - Simon Wincer)
7. McCabe & Mrs. Miller[/b][/color][/size] (1971 - Robert Altman)
8. A Fistful of Dollars[/b][/color][/size] & For A Few Dollars More[/b][/color] (1964 & 1956 - Sergio Leone)
9. The Professionals[/b][/color][/size] (1966 - Richard Brooks)
10. Lonely Are the Brave[/b][/color][/size] (1962 - David Miller)
And about fifty other favorites, from The Gunfighter and High Noon to The Ox-Bow Incident and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance to The Life & Times of Judge Roy Bean and Dead Man and on and on and on.
just watched HIGH NOON. i really really liked it. i have never seen a black and white western before and the transfer on dvd was great. you cant help but associate westerns with a brownish palette, so it was really interesting to see the high contrast of black and white. the sunbleached backgrounds against Gary Coopers stark black hat and vest was really cooll ooking. it was a great story too. different for a western. under 90 minutes and the first hour had absolutely zero action of any kind and then around the hour mark theres a fistfight and then a shootout in the last ten minutes but it was about the characters struggle and not about shootemups, and was good. :yabbse-thumbup:
I just saw/bought Unforgiven and that film blew me away.
Other westerns I like..
Fistful of Dollars
For A Few Dollars More
Tombstone
haven't seen Good, Bad & the Ugly yet.
Check out Winchester '73 and The Man From Laramie. Both were directed by Anthony Mann and star Jimmy Stewart.
I thought this was funny:
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/westerns.html
updated list (there's actually 10 this time):
-Once Upon a Time in the West
-The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
-For a Few Dollars More
-A Fistful of Dollars
-Rio Bravo
-Mccabe & Mrs. Miller
-The Shooting
-Ride in the Whirlwind
-The Searchers AND Red River
-The Magnificent Seven
The Wild Bunch sucks, I don't care what anybody says, it's not a good film, one of the most overrated. If BTTF 3 counts then that's definitely a favorite of mine.
i cant beleive only two of you mentioned the best western ever made
Tombstone
I think a very worthy western to be seen is The Hired Hand by Peter Fonda from 1971. Fonda has been traveling with the film for the last few years showing it at universities and festivals and it just came on video again. The film is about a wandering man living the life his society promoted to him of lawlessness and excitement. His enjoyment has been fulfilled and he feels the desire to rejoin the wife and child he abandoned ten years earlier and be the father he was suppose to be. The results of him coming back show the lack of love that exists between man and wife at the time and what things in life could be replaced. Fonda's achievement is the stunning photography; the quiet and engaging atmosphere and bringing a fresh perspective to the western. Some of the story is typical, but most of it is quite good. I actually think The Hired Hand, along with McCabe and Mrs. Miller, may be the last relevant western.
Ride in the Whirlwind
The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
Unforgiven
Just saw 3 Godfathers, directed by John Ford, and starring John Wayne. Three men find a baby in the desert and must take care of it. It was a bit sappy at times, but overall a very pleasurable viewing experience. It was fun to see John Wayne be uncomfortable as he tries to take care of the infant child. Oh, and here is my list, in no particular order, off the top of my head:
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
Shane
Rio Bravo
The Wild Bunch
Winchester '73
The Naked Spur
The Man From Laramie
Ride The High Country
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
The Shooting
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Thanks for all the suggestions, fellas. These have been added to my queue. It's going to be a fun spring. :yabbse-cool: