good stuff yall, although this thread is definitely leaning heavily towards "modern" westerns instead of the classic era. i must point out that this is a TEXAS BASED message board and we are 20 posts in and nobody has mentioned lonesome dove yet!!! another "modern" western that i think is criminally underrated is open range with kevin costner and robert duvall. i see it as a companion piece to unforgiven (story about the final days of the west and reckoning with your past) so if you like that movie i would highly recommend. costner directed and its beautifully shot. im a huge fan of robert duval and this is one of my favorite roles of his. jimmy stewart did a series of westerns in the 50's with the director anthony mann and i saw one of them recently called winchester 73. stewarts character wins the winchester in a shooting contest and its gets stolen. the gun is almost the star of the movie as it is passed from person to person, who each meet with some bad luck. its a really good story and stewart is great in it. the final fight scene is amazingly shot. i need to see all the other westerns those two did.
Rango, Django, Revenant, million ways to die in the west. True grit was alright. And yes modern because that's all I know lol. I tried watching some of the 30's/40's/50's movies but man the acting and camera work doesn't work for me. I need it to be shot in the 70's or 80's at least.
So many to choose from, I grew up loving westerns and still enjoy them. Here’s a few great ones I didn’t see mentioned: Dead Man, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, El Mariachi, Little Big Man, Giant, Treasure of the Sierra Madre...
In no particular order The Searchers (probably my pick for GOAT) Stagecoach (original) High Noon Once Upon a Time in the West Tombstone True Grit (remake) Not a movie, but if Red Dead Redemption 2 were made into a mini series, it would be the greatest Western story ever told.
This film history book (written in 1977) is a really fun and quick read about Western movies and how the plot/hero evolved through the decades ... following societal/cultural changes I read it before Unforgiven came out, and it really made Unforgiven even better when I saw it, breaking new ground in the genre, wrt the “hero” character. imo, good Westerns took a sabbatical through the 80s, until Unforgiven ... being replaced by Vietnam movies. Surprised Giant isn’t mentioned in the thread, esp after another thread about it. But maybe not everyone is a huge Elizabeth Taylor, like me. ———————— here’s the TOC. Chapters 5-7 claim a timeline progression of three types of Westerns (up to 1977 publish date). Classical, Vengeance and Professional. Table of Contents Preface 1. Introduction: The Myth and the Method 2. The Structure of Myth 3. The Structure of the Western Film 4. Myth as a Narrative of Social Action 5. Individuals and Values: The Classical Plot 6. Individuals Against Values: The Vengeance Variation 7. Groups and Techniques: The Professional Plot 8. Myth and Meaning
YES! You guuuuuys....yooooo guaaaaaas.... Did you see the size of that chicken? Why aren't they shooting at us? We're in the Spirit World, *******, they can't see us.
No Country is a western? Never looked at it like that. There was a crooked man. All of the Sergio Leon films and Sam Peckinpah movies.
Lonesome Dove. Sure it was TV, and the book was phenomenal, tough to match, but..........Lonesome Dove.
The Sisters Brothers The Wild Bunch Buck and the Preacher One Eyed Jacks Blazing Saddles Meek's Cutoff Dead Man Once Upon a Time in the West......... that is the greatest Western Ever made.
