5 Must-Watch '70s Westerns That Still Hold Up Today

From the earliest days of cinema, the Western has been one of the most popular genres Hollywood has to offer. There is perhaps no more American form of storytelling than the Western, which examines the earliest days of this country's existence in ways that are heroic, romantic, and, at times, even critical. As Hollywood underwent drastic change throughout the 1960s, studios looked to fresh voices to bring audiences back into theaters, leading to the New Hollywood revolution of the 1970s. These directors sought to create a grittier, more realistic kind of movie, and as such, cinema's oldest genres were given a dramatic facelift, none more so than the Western.

The Westerns of the 1970s were more violent, contemplative, and true to life than those that came before them. They demystified the glamour of the Old West, interrogating the legends of courageous cowboys and the stereotype of Indigenous Americans as murderous savages. The black-and-white heroes-versus-villains stories gave way to murkier shades of gray. At the same time, these films were just as exciting and riveting as anything starring John Wayne. Perhaps the major difference between Westerns of the 1970s and those of Hollywood's golden age was the more overt examination of themes and subtext that could only be hinted at before the Production Code was finally dismantled. In that way, the West reached its greatest form.

Here are five must-watch '70s Westerns that still hold up today, from action adventures to comedic spoofs to a farewell from the Duke himself, John Wayne.

In 1902, charismatic gambler John McCabe (Warren Beatty) arrives in the burgeoning mining town of Presbyterian Church, located in the rainy mountains of the Pacific Northwest. McCabe arrives with three prostitutes purchased for just $200, with plans to open a brothel. Although the locals are excited, Cockney prostitute Constance Miller (Julie Christie) sees through McCabe's overly confident facade. For a share of the profits, Mrs. Miller offers to help McCabe turn his brothel into a proper business, one with high-priced girls who won't spread disease throughout the town. As business booms, a pair of agents from the local mining company (Michael Murphy and Antony Holland) offer to buy McCabe out. He refuses, so the agents hire a trio of assassins to take the business by force.

A Western like "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" would've been unthinkable before 1971, yet such was the magic of the New Hollywood, that brief period in which genres could be twisted and subverted to reflect life as it really was. Directed by Robert Altman (one of the best directors of all time), the film deglamorizes the myth of the Old West, showing frontier life as cold, rainy, and full of mud. Yet there is also a gentle beauty to Altman's approach, from Vilmos Zsigmond's tintype photography-inspired cinematography to Leonard Cohen's sad song score. The film earned an Oscar nomination for Julie Christie in best actress, and was ranked as one of the 10 best westerns of all time by the American Film Institute.

In 1880s New Mexico, newly elected sheriff Pat Garrett (James Coburn) meets with his old friend, Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson). Garrett informs Billy that the local cattlemen want him out of the county, and when he assumes his official position, he'll be forced to drive him out. After a shootout between the lawmen and Billy's gang, Garrett tries to track his friend down, which is easier said than done. Governor Lew Wallace (Jason Robards) entices Garrett to continue his manhunt with a thousand-dollar reward from the local cattle barons, but Billy has some extra help from a mysterious gunfighter known only as Alias (Bob Dylan).

Few directors did more to fundamentally change the Western than Sam Peckinpah, who, with "The Wild Bunch" (released in 1969, the best year for Westerns), upped the action, violence, and mayhem of the genre to a shocking degree. As such, his films were often mutilated by studios and censors upon their release, which was certainly the case with "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid." Before it hit theaters in 1973, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer pressured Peckinpah to edit the movie down for length, leading to his eventual departure from the cutting room. The version that was released was but a hint of Peckinpah's vision, which has been lovingly restored with a Criterion 4K release. Modern viewers can now fully appreciate this lyrical ode to an American dream destroyed by capitalism, dramatized in the broken friendship between Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.

In the 1870s, corrupt attorney general Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman) plans to make millions by building a railroad through the Western town of Rock Ridge. When driving the townspeople out through violence fails, Lamarr institutes plan B: He convinces the dimwitted governor William J. Le Petomane (Mel Brooks) to make railroad worker Bart (Cleavon Little) the first black sheriff of Rock Ridge. The racist townspeople are initially hostile towards their new lawman, save for Jim (Gene Wilder), the alcoholic gunslinger known as "the Waco Kid." But Bart eventually wins them over, and with Jim's help, he hatches a plan to stop the crooked railroad company from destroying their town.

One of the best comedy movies of all time, "Blazing Saddles" breaks every taboo imaginable in lampooning Hollywood's oldest genre. Packed with wall-to-wall jokes about racism, flatulence, and the hidden homosexual undercurrent of cowboy movies, Mel Brooks' 1974 satire still retains the power to shock us with the bluntness of its humor. Never before or since have you heard racial epithets hurled with such frequency as a punchline, and surprisingly, almost all of them still land. Yet even as it's spoofing every cliche and trope of Westerns, it's also paying loving homage to them, making it a surprisingly effective spurs and saddles saga. The film earned Oscar nominations for best film editing, best original song (for the title tune), and best supporting actress for Madeline Kahn as the Marlene Dietrich-inspired singer Lili Von Shtupp, a seductress who's just too tired to get it on.

During the American Civil War, Missouri farmer Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood) joins the Confederacy after his wife and child are murdered by Union Army Captain Terrill (Bill McKinney) and his gang. Intent on revenge, Wales refuses to surrender when the war ends with the Confederacy's defeat, and his fellow soldiers are massacred by Terrill after surrendering their weapons. He flees to Texas after gunning down some of Terrill's men, and word spreads of the outlaw Josey Wales. Wales finds friendship with an aging Cherokee, Lone Waite (Chief Dan George), and falls in love with Laura Lee Turner (Sondra Locke), yet he can't escape the bounty on his head.

Despite its troubled production, "The Outlaw Josey Wales" turned out to be one of the best Clint Eastwood Westerns. Eastwood, who was both the star and producer, actually took over directing duties after firing original helmer Philip Kaufman when production was already underway. This led the Directors Guild of America to institute a rule prohibiting an actor or producer from doing that in the future (named, appropriately, the Eastwood Rule). Yet none of those production hurdles are present in the finished product, which is as exciting and thoughtful as Eastwood's best works as either a director or leading man. It also depicts Indigenous Americans in an empathetic way that flies in the face of many Westerns that came before. Released in 1976, the film was a box office success that earned an Oscar nomination for best original score.

At the turn of the 20th century, aging gunslinger J.B. Books (John Wayne) gets a terminal cancer diagnosis from the same county doctor (James Stewart) who treated his gunshot wounds 15 years ago. With just weeks left to live, he decides to spend his remaining days in Carson City, Nevada. Books rents a room from Bond Rogers (Lauren Bacall), a widow who lives with her teenage son, Gillom (Ron Howard). Hoping to keep his identity a secret, Books gives a fake name, and she's incensed when she finds out a notorious gunfighter is living in her boarding house. She becomes increasingly concerned as her son spends more time with the old man, who assures her he's of no harm. Yet several townspeople with questionable motives disrupt Books' hopes for a peaceful death, and he decides to go out with a fight.

One of John Wayne's best movies of all time, "The Shootist" was also the final film the Duke completed before his own death from cancer in 1979. Directed by Don Siegel, it's both a swan song for Wayne and a farewell to the kind of traditional Hollywood Western that made him an icon. As films like "The Wild Bunch" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" pointed the way toward a rougher, tougher kind of cowboy flick, this 1976 release looked back at a gentler era, highlighted by the presence of Wayne's "Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" costar James Stewart.