MRQE Ranks: Cinema's 45 Best Westerns

1

High Noon (1952)

Cast: Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Thomas Mitchell, Lloyd Bridges, Ian MacDonald

Director: Fred Zinnemann

Synopsis: This Western classic stars Gary Cooper as Hadleyville marshal Will Kane, about to retire from office and go on his honeymoon with his new Quaker br... [MORE]

2

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)

Cast: Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef

Director: Sergio Leone

Synopsis: In the last and the best installment of his so-called "Dollars" trilogy of Sergio Leone-directed "spaghetti westerns," Clint Eastwood reprised the ... [MORE]

3

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Cast: Henry Fonda, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards, Charles Bronson, Frank Wolff

Director: Sergio Leone

Synopsis: In Sergio Leone's epic Western, shot partly in Monument Valley, a revenge story becomes an epic contemplation of the Western past. To get his hands... [MORE]

4

Stagecoach (1939)

Cast: John Wayne, Thomas Mitchell, Claire Trevor, John Carradine, Andy Devine

Director: John Ford

Synopsis: Although there were Westerns before it, Stagecoach quickly became a template for all movie Westerns to come. Director John Ford combined action, dr... [MORE]

5

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Tim Holt, Walter Huston, Alfonso Bedoya, Bruce Bennett

Director: John Huston

Synopsis: John Huston's 1948 treasure-hunt classic begins as drifter Fred C. Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart), down and out in Tampico, Mexico, impulsively spends his... [MORE]

6

Unforgiven (1992)

Cast: Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris, Jaimz Woolvett

Director: Clint Eastwood

Synopsis: Dedicated to his mentors Sergio Leone and Don Siegel, Clint Eastwood's 1992 Oscar-winner examines the mythic violence of the Western, taking on the... [MORE]

7

The Wild Bunch (1969)

Cast: William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien, Warren Oates

Director: Sam Peckinpah

Synopsis: "If they move, kill 'em!" Beginning and ending with two of the bloodiest battles in screen history, Sam Peckinpah's classic revisionist Western rut... [MORE]

8

McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)

Cast: Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Rene Auberjonois, John Schuck, William Devane

Director: Robert Altman

Synopsis: Memorably described by Pauline Kael as "a beautiful pipe dream of a movie," Robert Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller reimagines the American West as a ... [MORE]

9

The Searchers (1956)

Cast: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Natalie Wood, Ward Bond

Director: John Ford

Synopsis: If John Ford is the greatest Western director, The Searchers is arguably his greatest film, at once a grand outdoor spectacle like such Ford classi... [MORE]

10

For a Few Dollars More (1965)

Cast: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Sergio Leone, Gian Maria Volonte, Jose Egger

Director: Sergio Leone

Synopsis: This pulse-pounding follow-up to Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars brings back Clint Eastwood as the serape-clad, cigar-chewing "Man With No Name... [MORE]

11

No Country for Old Men (2007)

Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kelly Macdonald

Director: Joel Coen

Synopsis: When a Vietnam veteran discovers two million dollars while wandering through the aftermath of a Texas drug deal gone horribly awry, his decision to... [MORE]

12

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

Cast: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katharine Ross, Strother Martin, Jeff Corey

Director: George Roy Hill

Synopsis: Opening with a silent "movie" of Butch Cassidy's Hole in the Wall Gang, George Roy Hill's comically elegiac Western chronicles the mostly true tale... [MORE]

13

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

Cast: John Wayne, James Stewart, Vera Miles, Lee Marvin, Edmond O'Brien

Director: John Ford

Synopsis: Like Pontius Pilate, director John Ford asks "What is truth?" in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance--but unlike Pilate, Ford waits for an answer. The... [MORE]

14

Rio Bravo (1959)

Cast: John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson, Walter Brennan

Director: Howard Hawks

Synopsis: Set in Texas during the late 1860s, Rio Bravo is a story of men (and women) and a town under siege. Presidio County Sheriff John T. Chance (John Wa... [MORE]

15

True Grit (2010)

Cast: Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper, Hailee Steinfeld

Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Synopsis: Fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) joins an aging U.S. marshal (Jeff Bridges) and another lawman (Matt Damon) in tracking her father'... [MORE]

16

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway, Randy Quaid

Director: Ang Lee

Synopsis: Ang Lee's adaptation of E. Annie Proulx's story Brokeback Mountain stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger as young cowboys named Jack Twist and Enn... [MORE]

17

True Grit (1969)

Cast: John Wayne, Kim Darby, Glen Campbell, Robert Duvall, Jeremy Slate

Director: Henry Hathaway

Synopsis: In fine Hollywood tradition, John Wayne had to play a "one-eyed fat man" before the Motion Picture Academy considered him worthy of an Oscar. In Tr... [MORE]

18

The Magnificent Seven (1960)

Cast: Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Horst Buchholz, Eli Wallach

Director: John Sturges

Synopsis: Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai (1954) is westernized as The Magnificent Seven. Yul Brynner plays Chris, a mercenary hired to... [MORE]

19

Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)

Cast: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah, Gordon Liu

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Synopsis: Quentin Tarantino's sprawling homage to action films of both the East and the West reaches its conclusion in this continuation of 2003's ultra-viol... [MORE]

20

The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

Cast: Clint Eastwood, Chief Dan George, Sondra Locke, Bill McKinney, John Vernon

Director: Clint Eastwood

Synopsis: Clint Eastwood's fifth film as a director and eighth Western as a star (ninth if you count Paint Your Wagon), The Outlaw Josey Wales chronicles the... [MORE]

21

A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

Cast: Clint Eastwood, Gian Maria Volontè, Marianne Koch, Sieghardt Rupp

Director: Sergio Leone

Synopsis: By the time Sergio Leone made this film, Italians had already produced about 20 films ironically labelled "spaghetti westerns." Leone approached th... [MORE]

22

Dances with Wolves (1990)

Cast: Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene, Rodney A. Grant, Floyd 'Red Crow' Westerman

Director: Kevin Costner

Synopsis: historical drama about the relationship between a Civil War soldier and a band of Sioux Indians, Kevin Costner's directorial debut was also a surp... [MORE]

23

3:10 to Yuma (2007)

Cast: Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, Logan Lerman, Dallas Roberts, Ben Foster

Director: James Mangold

Synopsis: Russell Crowe plays a desperado whose accomplices stage an ambush after he is taken into custody by a determined local sheriff in this remake of th... [MORE]

24

El Mariachi (1992)

Cast: Carlos Gallardo, Consuelo Gomez, Reinol Martinez, Peter Marquardt, Jamie de Hoyos

Director: Robert Rodriguez

Synopsis: Filmed in two weeks on a budget of 7,000 dollars, El Mariachi was one of the singular pleasures of the 1993-1994 movie season. Kind-spirited guitar... [MORE]

25

The Proposition (2005)

Cast: Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Danny Huston, John Hurt

Director: John Hillcoat

Synopsis: An outlaw is goaded into taking on justice at its most brutal in this hard-edged Western set in rural Australia in the 1880s. Charlie Burns (Guy Pe... [MORE]

26

City Slickers (1991)

Cast: Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern, Bruno Kirby, Jack Palance, Patricia Wettig

Director: Ron Underwood

Synopsis: City Slickers blends sight gags, one-liners, and sincerity, with both humor and drama arising from the characters and their situations. Mitch (Bill... [MORE]

27

Tombstone (1993)

Cast: Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Michael Biehn, Powers Boothe, Dana Delany

Director: George P. Cosmatos

Synopsis: A high-energy action adventure based on legend rather than historical fact finds Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell) desiring to retire from law enforcement.... [MORE]

28

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

Cast: Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Mary-Louise Parker, Brooklyn Proulx, Sam Rockwell

Director: Andrew Dominik

Synopsis: Brad Pitt stars as legendary Wild West outlaw Jesse James in Chopper director Andrew Dominik's cinematic rendering of the events that would eventua... [MORE]

29

Open Range (2003)

Cast: Robert Duvall, Kevin Costner, Annette Bening, Michael Gambon, Michael Jeter

Director: Kevin Costner

Synopsis: Kevin Costner stars in and directs the Western Open Range. Robert Duvall stars as Boss Spearman, a rugged old-timer who free-grazes cattle. He and ... [MORE]

30

Appaloosa (2008)

Cast: Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen, Renée Zellweger, Jeremy Irons

Director: Ed Harris

Synopsis: Upon drifting into a troubled Western outpost and discovering that the helpless locals are being terrorized by a ruthless rancher and his brutish h... [MORE]

32

Blazing Saddles (1974)

Cast: Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Harvey Korman, Madeline Kahn, Slim Pickens

Director: Mel Brooks

Synopsis: Vulgar, crude, and occasionally scandalous in its racial humor, this hilarious bad-taste spoof of Westerns, co-written by Richard Pryor, features C... [MORE]

33

Shanghai Noon (2000)

Cast: Jackie Chan, Owen Wilson, Lucy Liu, Brandon Merrill, Roger Yuan

Director: Tom Dey

Synopsis: Jackie Chan has often played a fish out of water, but he's rarely found himself so far upstream as in this comic adventure, in which he puts his fi... [MORE]

34

Giant (1956)

Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Mercedes McCambridge, Carroll Baker

Director: George Stevens

Synopsis: George Stevens' sprawling adaptation of Edna Ferber's best-selling novel successfully walks a fine line between potboiler and serious drama for its... [MORE]

35

Back to the Future Part III (1990)

Cast: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Mary Steenburgen, Thomas F. Wilson, Lea Thompson

Director: Robert Zemeckis

Synopsis: The final installment in the Back to the Future trilogy picks up where the second film left off, but it casts off the dizzying time travel of the f... [MORE]

36

Desperado (1995)

Cast: Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Joaquim de Almeida, Cheech Marin, Steve Buscemi

Director: Robert Rodriguez

Synopsis: Director Robert Rodriguez picks up where his successful independent debut El Mariachi left off with this slam-bang South of the Border action saga.... [MORE]

37

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

Cast: Harvey Keitel, George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino, Juliette Lewis, Cheech Marin

Director: Robert Rodriguez

Synopsis: In this action-horror flick from director Robert Rodriguez and screenwriter Quentin Tarantino, Tarantino stars with George Clooney as a pair of bad... [MORE]

38

Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003)

Cast: Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Johnny Depp, Mickey Rourke, Eva Mendes

Director: Robert Rodriguez

Synopsis: Director Robert Rodriguez returns to the characters of his breakthrough hits El Mariachi and Desperado in this grand scale south-of-the-border acti... [MORE]

39

Legends of the Fall (1994)

Cast: Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, Aidan Quinn, Julia Ormond, Henry Thomas

Director: Edward Zwick

Synopsis: The sweeping, melodramatic saga of three brothers, their powerful father, and a beautiful woman, the popular period drama Legends of the Fall prese... [MORE]

40

Maverick (1994)

Cast: Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, Alfred Molina, James Garner

Director: Richard Donner

Writer: William Goldman

41

The Missing (2003/I)

Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Cate Blanchett, Evan Rachel Wood, Jenna Boyd, Aaron Eckhart

Director: Ron Howard

Synopsis: Director Ron Howard turns to the Western genre in this tale of a father and daughter who are brought together under difficult circumstances. Samuel... [MORE]

42

Hidalgo (2004)

Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Zuleikha Robinson, Omar Sharif, Louise Lombard, Adam Alexi-Malle

Director: Joe Johnston

Synopsis: Actor Viggo Mortensen made his first starring appearance in a film after his breakthrough performance in the Lord of the Rings trilogy with this pe... [MORE]

43

The Quick and the Dead (1995)

Cast: Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobin Bell

Director: Sam Raimi

Synopsis: Director Sam Raimi brings his trademark comic book-influenced visual panache to this post-modern Western. Sharon Stone stars as Ellen, a mysterious... [MORE]

44

Young Guns (1988)

Cast: Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Charlie Sheen, Dermot Mulroney

Director: Christopher Cain

Synopsis: In this Western based loosely on actual events and people, Emilio Estevez stars as William H. Bonney (aka Billy the Kid). Sought for a petty crime ... [MORE]

45

Wyatt Earp (1994)

Cast: Kevin Costner, Dennis Quaid, Gene Hackman, Michael Madsen, David Andrews

Director: Lawrence Kasdan

Synopsis: Directed by Lawrence Kasdan, this epic version of the legendary western sheriff-gunslinger's life story stars Kevin Costner as Earp, who lived from... [MORE]