Entertainment For Lively Minds
Best westerns
Posted by Twangothan on 19 September 2009 - 11:30pm.
Badger's excellent thread on war movies made me think about favourite westerns - especially after watching a very average "Tombstone" last night. My faves (though I am sure there are others):
The good the bad and the ugly (all the Clints are good really - Josey Wales, Pale Rider)
High Noon
Once upon a time in the west
Shalako (yes, I know, but I saw it for my birthday as a nipper
The five man army (sadly out of print, but another birthday treat)
The Wild Bunch
Silverado (a bit for laughs, but a proper wester nonetheless)
Others?
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the Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is my favourite western It features the biggest steaks I have ever seen. Stagecoach is another great film. The Searchers, mmm I'm going to have to stop or I'll be typing all night
The Searchers
Not only the best Western but one of the greatest films ever made.
Unforgiven Eastwood's finest.
3:10 To Yuma (The original)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence
There's a really good Best Western in Leamington Spa...
and I once stayed in one in Texas, oddly enough. (Or perhaps not so oddly...)
No, sorry...
Do you know what - I seem to remember that 'Young Guns' was actually a pretty good late 80s reworking of the Western. I haven't seen it for years, so correct me if I'm wrong...
I know it ain't a classic, but it was made at a time when Westerns were pretty unfashionable - I saw it at the cinema & it made a big impression. I think I'd only seen cowboy movies on the small screen on Saturday afternoons before that. And Kiefer is in it, so no arguments from me.
Trip Advisor
Damn, I was going to do the Best Western not as good as Holiday Inn comment. I'm glad it wasn't just me that thought of it though - I feel a a little less insane now.
I think
you are in pretty good company!
i quite like
i quite like 'tombstone'
'seraphim falls' is a good edition
is 'bad day at black rock' a western?
In everything except era
fantastic film though
A fine list, but..
The Magnificent Seven. Has to be in there.
I'd also want The Shootist and She Wore A Yellow Ribbon.
And, whilst it isn't a Western in the classic sense, Little Big Man is a fine film.
I'm not a big Western fan
but
Liberty Valance
The Shootist
and Tombstone are all cracking films
and then there's Blazing Saddles, of course... :D
Blazing Saddles..
I don't really think of it as a Western.
I do, however, think of it as one of the best films of all time.
Anyone remember going to see it in a double-bill with Monty Python And The Holy Grail in the early 80's? My dad lied about my age to get me in. And I saw them once more the next year when they came round again.
Indeed
I dodn't think of it as a western but on reflection it probably is, though asend up of one obviously. And it is indeed one of the finest films. HEADLEY!
Rev'rnd!
.
Shut up
You teutonic twat!
Hello, boys! I missed you!
Sorry, couldn't resist. Anyone for more Schnitzengrüben?
Anyone got a nickle?
Anyone got a nickle?
"Up yours
ni**er!"
sorry but the old granny says it
But she does apologise later..
So that probably makes it OK.
I pity yo foos!
there can only be one -
Rio Bravo
Yes
I was about to post this!
Motion carried!
I was just heading that way myself. The best of them all! Coming in a close second is "Forty Guns" by the brilliant Sam Fuller.
I'll add my vote
Rio Bravo is fantastic.
Apparently
It´s Quentin Tarantino´s favourite movie
Apparently
It´s Quentin Tarantino´s favourite movie
Apparently
so
If the little kid doesnt annoy you too much
then Shane is a fine western, great performance from Jack Palance as Wilson.
I actually quite like Tombstone, was a kid when first watched it so i think that makes all the difference!
Shurley Shome Mishtake?
Tombstone is wonderful. I've just started rewatching it now.
In terms of BPOM (Badassess Per Minute) it can't be beat; Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Sam Elliott, Bill Paxton, Michael Biehn,, Thomas Haden Church, Powers Boothe, Michael Rooker, Billy Bob Thornton, Charlton Heston and narration from Robert 'baddestofasses' Mitchum.
Beat that, 'Expendables'
OK, possibly I was a bit harsh
I just find Val Kilmer a bit trying in anything, especially where he is "acting" as in being pale faced, red eyed and consumptive. Up there with Tom Hanks for least convincing actor. But, OK, most of Tombstone is OK, but compared to Good Bad Ugly for example it is a pygmy really.
Normally I'd agree
Kilmer can be something of a dubious pleasure, but in this he is quite, quite brilliant.
He did look ill
I must admit I do enjoy watching Tombstone - Kilmir is excellent - he looked really ill. Plus I remember the guy who was shot and bled all over the pool table plus Kirt Russell's lady - very pleasing - she was on the stage (in the film) - cant remember her name.
I still enjoy Spaghetti westerns....modern western remakes aren't 'dusty' and gritty enough for me......1510 to Yuma was so so
Spotted one more
John Locke's in it too!
Hang 'Em High!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/plumbs-best-western-films/lm/R2EWD4AOOU5MS6
It should be on the other film thread
I know, but I liked Dances With Wolves. There. I feel better now.
Deadwood was briliant. You were actually there. Where did it go ? Is it on dvd ?.
Deadwood
Totally agree - series captured a community on the edge of lawlessness. You could smell the filth!
Think it finished after the 3rd or 4th series. Probably out on DVD out there somewhere.
Some not mentioned
High Noon is good and tense.
I am slightly conflicted on Leoni films I think i like the idea of them more than reality but "the man with no names" perhaps.
Howard Hawks "Rio Bravo/El Dorado" it's the same film just with a different drunk!
"My Darling Clementine" (john Ford) which may be the best OK corral film.
Oh and we need to talk about Kevin, I like "Wyatt Earp" because it's got some historic context but still a good western.
Oh and "Open Range" is really good a raw adult western with great acting and a bleak shoot out.
Lastly we can't mention westerns without hearing the deadwood stage come over the hill "whip cracking away" come on it's got Doris Day in it and the say "Chicargee" a lot.
A few more...
Jerimiah Johnson (Redford's best film)
Lonely are the Brave (Kirk D's best film)
Bad Day at Black Rock - yes it is a western and with the best fight scene in any movie, ever
and the Seven Samurai...
And as well documented elsewhere, The Searchers is crap.
We need to talk
The Searchers, John Wayne and John Ford's finest moments.
It tackled everything, loneliness, racism, friendship greed and love.
"Is this an invite to a neck-tie party?"
Isn't True Grit usually said to be John Wayne's best?
Think he got an Oscar for his Rooster Cogburn character.
Yeah, but...
...only because they'd utterly failed to give him one for anything else.
Shoot me down pardners...
It sure as Hell ain't no straight western but I love the mutation of the genre in Firefly.
The Wild Bunch
and Lonely are the Brave
The Left Handed Gun
with Paul Newman as Billy the Kid. I's essentially Rebel Without a Clause in Western clothes.
Favourite Clint Movies:
High Plains Drifter - dark and stylish allegory.
Pale Rider - a precusor of Unforgiven, taut and well-made
The Outlaw Josey Wales - perhaps the best western, perhaps the best movie ever.
Like all these Clint movies
particularly The Outlaw Josey Wales. Best movie ever would be stretching it though.
The Gunfighter
Gregory Peck is somewhat under-rated as an actor and he is brilliant in this - which can be seen as an early example of the revisionist weterns that came a decade or so later - exploring the existenial angst behind the "fastest gun" legend.
james stewart classics
James Stewart's collaborations with director Anthony Mann are classics of the genre.
Winchester 73
The Man from Laramie
The Naked Spur
Bend of the River
Another vote for
Rio Bravo.
But how about those two late great Burt Lancaster masterpieces "Ulzana's Raid" and "Valdez is Coming?"
Surely the greatest western of all time is "Heaven's Gate" - has to be seen in the full director's cut version in 70mm. Truly magnificent!!!
Heaven's Gate would get my vote for best ever.
Isabelle Huppert *sigh*
Summing up why The Searchers is overrated better than I can...
http://www.slate.com/id/2145142/?nav=tap3
I'm surprised
nobody's mentioned Star Wars...
Me too
It is not a western
It is science fiction. For children. Sorry, that's not a troll, I just hate it.
Sci Fi fans tend to dislike it too
claiming that it isn't sci-fi at all, but a space-fantasy. I'd say they have a point.
It kind of is a Western-with-spaceships, though. I think that's how it was originally conceived, although it deviates massively from that.
I like it, but then I saw it, aged 8, in the cinema when it came out.
I agree it's a kid's movie.
I think I like it chiefly for nostalgic reasons now.
Ah but
it's a B-movie western. In space.
As was the very soon after Battle Beyond The Stars with Robert Vaughn and Richard 'John Boy Walton' Thomas. Freaky.
Is
"Battlestar Galactica" a western too?
nah
it's just crap
Nah
It's a mormon story. Well, the original one is anyway...
Is it wagon train
much like Star trek?
The mormon/(esp original) galactica thing
has been written about a lot.
Here's just two links:
http://www.information-literacy.net/2009/05/battlestar-galactica-and-mor...
http://mormonmatters.org/2009/03/21/battlestar-galactica-series-finale-c...
A search on google on "battlestar galactica mormon themes" should shed some light.
PS: I'm not a Mormon, incidentally.
Hey
I never said I liked it :-)
The Proposition
Not strictly a western, but it bears so many of the hallmarks, that it pretty much counts as one, even though set in Australia. Plus Guy Pearce is great in it.
The Missing
Tommy Lee Jones and Cate Blanchett. Some may not have enjoyed this. But I quite liked it, but then again I can't really stand the traditional style of westerns.
Wild Wild West???
No??
I'll retrieve my poncho...
Best Westerns
I'm a big fan of the Western and thought I'd add a lengthy list of my favourite westerns to this thread. All are worth seeing if you can.
The Wild Bunch.
McCabe and Mrs Millar.
Once Upon A Time In The West.
The Shooting.
Ride In The Whirlwind.
Johnny Guitar.
Forty Guns.
Run Of The Arrow.
Seven Men From Now.
Rancho Notorious.
High Plains Drifter.
The Last Wagon.
3:10 From Yuma - the original version.
Ride Lonesome.
Commanche Station.
Son Of Paleface.
Bend Of The River.
The Naked Spur.
Red River.
Ride The High Country.
Way Out West - with Laurel and Hardy.
The Big Silence.
Django.
Django Kill.
The Ballad Of Cable Hogue.
Bad Company - with Jeff Bridges.
Rio Bravo.
Ulzana' Raid.
High Noon.
Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid.
The Left Handed Gun.
Dirty Little Billy.
Death Rides A Horse.
El Topo.
Welcome To Hard Times.
A Bullet For The General.
Keoma.
The Gunfighter.
For A Few Dollars More.
Kid Blue.
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
The Tall T.
The Wonderful Country.
Pursued.
Colorado Territory.
Silver Lode.
The Proposition.
Man Of The West.
Dead Man.
fess up
you copied that from somewhere
believe it or not,
I wrote that list myself, and only listed films I have actually seen and rate highly. I'm probably too much of a film fan for my own good.
Dead Man
Forgot about that. A corker, with a fantastic Neil Young soundtrack.
What about "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid"?
A Great List, Stinkor
And very good to see SON OF PALEFACE, WAY OUT WEST and KID BLUE on it: there are great comedy westerns that don't trash the genre. BLAZING SADDLES is very funny - I defy anyone not to laugh loudly at at least some bits of it. But it's still clear that Mel Brooks fundamentally despises the genre, which for me leaves a sour aftertaste. Whereas Burt Kennedy's SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SHERIFF runs loops round the genre which are knowing but affectionate. The films he wrote for Budd Boetticher are beautiful - wise, funny and moving - if I could call them one movie, they'd be my Desert Island pick. DIRTY LITTLE BILLY - great lost movie - with one of the saddest endings I have ever seen. Stan Dragoti has never directed anything else like it, anything remotely approaching its quality. It's great how otherwise humdrum directorial careers can still boast isolated masterpieces - Michael Anderson's THE QUILLER MEMORANDUM, Arthur Hiller's HOSPITAL: I guess it's the script - Pinter and Chayevsky in those cases. Okay - not westerns: but how about Hugo Fregonese's THE RAID? A blistering little movie. (Phew - got back on track at the end...)
thanks for
the memory jolt Chuck, Support Your Local Sheriff is one I'm kicking myself for not remembering
The Searchers ....
... because of storyline, photography, and John Wayne's greatest performance.
But always had a soft spot for Johnny Guitar, probably the most camp western ever made.
Also have to say Shane, High Noon and The Wild Bunch.
camp
Lonesome Cowboys?
What was the gay one, with Heath Ledger in it?
The Joker
Brokeback Mountain is a fine film,
which certainly wears it's homoerotic/ male bonding themes more openly than others in the genre. And of course, it is the second best use of Naked Jake Gyllenhaal in a film. (Number one on that list? - Jarhead. Which belongs on the war films list if it isn't already there.)
Roughly in date order, I'd go for...
... Liberty Valance.
High Noon.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
McCabe and Mrs Miller.
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.
Days of Heaven.
The Outlaw Josey Wales.
Dances With Wolves.
Last of the Mohicans.
The Assasination of Jesse James...
you missed
Rio Bravo
enough already!
Didn't miss it
Never seen it.
(Was a Top 10 too many?)
Carry On Cowboy
Jim Dale at his bumbling, heroic best.
Yep
That is my nomination too. World class.
if i may...
Johnny Finger: How! Me-um heap big paleface chief from-um Stodge City. Me-um salute-um big chief. Me-um want-um pow-wow.
Big Heap: I say, you do talk funny. You must be foreigners.
My nickel's worth
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
Wild Bunch...in fact any Peckinpah western is worth it
The Hired Hand
Once Upon a Time in the West
Fistful of Dynamite
Missouri Breaks
McCabe & Mrs Miller
Rio Bravo
Ulzana's Raid
The Professionals
High Plains Drifter
and yes Mr Tortilla..Heaven's Gate is extraordinary
As you can see..much prefer reinterpretations to classic Ford/Mann bar room brawl westerns
I'm surprised no-one has mentioned
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. I wasn't sure i was going to like it especially as you already know what is going to happen but it's brilliant.
But I'm in agreement with others here in saying that "The Outlaw Josey Wales" is my favourite. Amongst many great lines is the following:
Bounty Hunter - "A Man's got to make a living"
Josey - "Dying ain't much of a living".... Followed by much shooting and 1 dead bounty hunter.
U lot are so predictable.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
3 Godfathers
Paris, Texas
Oh yes of course
That famous western "Paris, Texas", I forgot about that one.
Rather like...
"it's all pop music". Well, yes, but urrr, no.
I think he only watches films
with a 8 and 4 in the release date.!
Sierra madre is set in 1925!
in 3 godfathers John Wayne's character is called "Robert Marmaduke Hightower" though!
Oh and has anyone watched Paris Texas recently i have feeling we all got excited at the time about the thought of Nastassja Kinski a stripper and bit of twangy guitar isn't it all style of substance? (see also Betty blue)
Butch
Does Butch and Sundance still count as a Western?
And can I reiterate the support for "Once upon a time in the West"?
Oh God. I'd just about weaned myself off Westerns. Now I think Saturday evening's just gone for a burton.
Telly, but....
I used to love the "High Chaparral" as a nipper. Blue Boy, Manolito, Buck etc. Ahhh, Victoria.
Westerns - I Love 'Em!
There are clearly a load of western fans out there. Among my favourites are:
The Searchers
Red River
The Westerner
Rio Bravo
Rio Grande
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon
Unforgiven
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
The Outlaw Josey Wales
Open Range
Duel At Diablo
Support Your Local Sheriff
Cat Ballou
Destry Rides Again
Winchester '73
The Naked Spur
How The West Was Won
The Virginian....
...was a Western series I adored as a young teenager in the late Sixties even though I'm not a great Western movie fan. Any other fond memories of Friday evenings at 6.45 prior to All Gas and Gaiters?
Regards, Tony
And
"The quick and the dead". Unintentionally hilarious and Sharon Stone in leather trousers as a gunfighter. What's not to like?
My favourite and my best genre
Looks like most of the goodies have been covered. But no mention for Peckinpah's Ride the High Country. Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea's last ever screen appearance. If you don't break down blubbing at the end then you are very probably dead.
Off to Lovefilm
I go.
Just thought - The Lone Ranger!!!! I had all the singles as a nipper.
All together, eveyone..
"Randolph Scott!"
(sorry, another Blazing Saddles moment)
Charlton Heston
I know Charlton is now somewhat derided for his interest in guns but after Planet Of The Apes, he made a great western called Will Penny.
Not seen that
but he's also not too shabby in the much-underappreciated, though not classic, Major Dundee. Another non-mentioned Peckinpah.
along with the very quirky...
Ballad of Cable Hogue with the immortal Jason Robards
The Westerner
Walter Brennan as Judge Roy Bean, who has the hots for Lily Langtry; Gary Cooper a drifter who is about to be hung by the Judge when he claims not only to have met Lilly but has a lock of her hair stashed somewhere. The Judge stays the execution to get his hands on the lock of hair...
The whole film's a hoot, with a nice balance of comedy and hard-edged western action. Brennan is brilliant. A much admired actor who won no less than 3 academy awards (the first actor to do so) and still the only actor to win 3 best supporting actor academy awards, including for his role as Judge Roy Bean.
Missouri Breaks
Another vote for this one.
On TV in the UK Friday 2 October - don't miss it! Brando and Nicholson - superb!!