5 Best Western Movies Set In The Snow, Ranked

Deserts, prairies, and maybe some forests and mountain vistas if we're lucky. Those are the landscapes often associated with the best Western movies of all time – and in all fairness, it's because those are typically the landscapes they depict. Meanwhile, snow is an element we don't usually think of when this particular genre is discussed. This is understandable, but it doesn't mean that the white stuff doesn't turn up in Western settings every now and then.

The thing is, many people of the old West absolutely had to deal with winter conditions. Some like John Ford's 1956 epic "The Searchers" starring John Wayne and Quentin Tarantino's 2015 Western mystery thriller "The Hateful Eight" have featured their share of snow to illustrate this fact. But what are the greatest Western movies that use snowy landscapes as their key setting? Let's take a look at five of the best, ranked by their Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer scores.

Snow, slurry, mud, and everything in between pockmark the weather conditions in Robert Altman's "McCabe & Mrs. Miller," which takes place in a shoddy Washington state town called Presbyterian Church. Waltzing into this rapidly developing mining town of simple salt-of-the-earth types is John McCabe (Warren Beatty), a boisterous gambler and businessman who partners with Mrs. Constance Miller (Julie Christie) to set up a house of ill repute and become a notable man about town. Unfortunately, McCabe is about to learn that there's always a bigger fish, and when a large mining company takes an interest in the town, its hired hands aren't exactly intimidated by his reputation as a notorious gunfighter.

A highly unconventional, leisurely-paced Western with no real heroes and a soundtrack consisting of a handful of Leonard Cohen songs, the film is a magnificent reimagining of the genre that proceeds at its own pace. With a solid 85% Tomatometer score, the 1971 film remains a fresh, inventive piece of cinema — and it doesn't hurt that Christie's performance is so good that she was nominated for an Academy Award for best actress.

Contemporary Westerns are Westerns too, and fans of the grim-yet-soapy modern Western drama "Yellowstone" shouldn't forget that its creator Taylor Sheridan has been known to put in some serious work on the big screen. Denis Villeneuve's "Sicario" is an oft-quoted example of his writing prowess, but Sheridan's sensational 2017 neo-Western "Wind River" might be the better overall example of what he can do, having penned and directed the film to the tune of an 87% Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score.

"Wind River" is a moody, relentless neo-Western crime film that sees U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service tracker Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) team up with FBI agent Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen) to investigate the circumstances behind the death of young Natalie Hanson (Kelsey Asbille). As the reality of the situation slowly unfolds, the film examines how little interest society gives to the deaths of Native American women, making it clear that Natalie's story is one of many. Brutal but touching, "Wind River" takes the ruthlessness of its winter setting and turns it into a key element of the story that's present to the very end.

These days, "Jeremiah Johnson" might mostly be known for the meme where the handsomely bearded Robert Redford gives an approving nod at the camera. However, rest assured that Sydney Pollack's mountain-themed 1972 Western has plenty more than that to offer. 

Here, Redford's titular character retreats to the Rocky Mountains in the mid-19th century, struggling to survive but eventually learning the tricks of mountain man living. Johnson makes friends and clashes with enemies, and eventually settles down with an unconventional little family of his own. Sadly, fate has darker plans for Johnson, whose legend starts building in ways that neither he — nor his enemies — would have suspected.

One of Robert Redford's best movies, "Jeremiah Johnson" isn't a Western in the traditional "cowboys and outlaws shooting at each other" sense, being more interested in telling a story of mountain survival and the unique personal relationships that this life forges. However, it definitely has more than enough genre elements to qualify as a full-hearted Western, and its 92% Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer rating means that it's one of the better films to explore the wintery aspects of frontier life. Adding to its authenticity is the fact that "Jeremiah Johnson" was filmed in Arizona and Utah locations that were carefully vetted to convey the image of truly untamed wilderness. 

1959's "Day of the Outlaw" has a full 100% Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer rating, and for good reason. André De Toth's surprisingly complicated but nevertheless classic Western chronicles a confrontation between cattle man Blaise Starrett (Robert Ryan) and Hal Crane (Alan Marshal) — an influential man in the town of Bitters whose advocacy for controlling cattle passage with barbed wire has disrupted Starrett's profession. Adding to the situation is that Starrett is smitten with Crane's wife, Helen (Tina Louise).

The real stakes are revealed when the titular outlaw — an injured Jack Bruhn (Burl Ives) — enters with his military-themed retinue and takes over, leaving the fate of the town hanging by a thread. At this point, "Day of the Outlaw" turns into a whole different movie,  becoming a case of who will survive and what will be left. It's a jarring, but excellent stylistic choice that changes the film's flavor of desperation in dramatically, showing just how insignificant the early-game stakes were. Even after this, the movie escalates when the domineering villains learn the hard way how small they are compared to the harshness of nature.

Perhaps more than any other film here, the snow in "Day of the Outlaw" is a character in its own right. Stark, cruel, and cold, the white landscapes of Wyoming are captured in austere, long black-and-white shots that make the viewer shiver out of sympathy for the characters who live their lives in this icy hell.

Picture a winter-themed spaghetti Western made by "Django" director Sergio Corbucci and starring the volatile Klaus Kinski, and you know that "The Great Silence" is going to be a treat. The second film on this list with full 100% marks on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer, "The Great Silence" begins when killers led by Henry Pollicut (Luigi Pistilli) murder the parents of a boy, whom they render mute while they're at it. The kid grows up into a skilled gunfighter known as Silence (Jean-Louis Trintignant), and once again finds himself on the collision course with both Pollicut — now a wealthy man but no less of a villain — and a ruthless gang of bounty-hunting outlaws led by the ominous Loco (Kinski).

Notably, "The Great Silence" has one of the most hopeless and brutal endings in the genre. We won't go into the specifics here, but before you go in, it's wise to mentally prepare for anything but a happy outcome. Corbucci also shot a more pleasant ending, but the grim nature of the original is a far better fit with the rest of the movie. After all, it allows "The Great Silence" to end on a note as deathly cold as the landscape the film takes place in.