55 Best Western Movies Of All Time Ranked

Outlaws Link Stuart and Gauche rob a train, taking not only money but also a treasured samurai sword that its guard, Kuroda, is determined to regain. When Link's partner double-crosses him, Kuroda gains a new assistant in his quest to find Gauche, recover the goods, and get revenge. "Red Sun" feels like an epic movie crossover event, bringing together three iconic stars from three different countries — Charles Bronson, Toshirō Mifune, and Alain Delon — and giving audiences both outlaw bandit action and samurai action. It's such an unusual fusion that it could probably never be universally beloved, but fans of any of these actors or these kinds of genre-bending mash-ups should get an enormous kick out of it.

• Starring: Charles Bronson, Ursula Andress, Toshirō Mifune

• Director: Terence Young

• Year: 1971

• Runtime: 112 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 40%

"Tombstone" is an engaging look at some of the key parts of Wyatt Earp's lasting legacy, and it gives itself a unique flavor by putting more weight on the close friendship between Wyatt and Doc Holliday, who's slowly dying of tuberculosis (but refuses to let that get in the way of backing up Wyatt). As Wyatt put his badge back on to take on the persistent threat of a gang called the Cowboys, the cost of justice steadily rises, with Wyatt's own brothers paying some of the price. Val Kilmer's performance as Doc Holliday puts the finishing touches on "Tombstone" and makes it a classic.

• Starring: Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Sam Elliott

• Director: George P. Cosmatos

• Year: 1993

• Runtime: 127 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 74%

The Civil War is in full swing, and Drew Dixon is headed west to dodge conscription. To survive, he falls in with "bad company" — namely the affable but dangerous Jake Rumsey and his untrained gang of thieves and would-be outlaws. Drew tries to stick to his morals while still keeping on the right side of the gang, but no amount of careful tightrope-walking can stop him from getting into trouble. Sometimes comedic and sometimes bleakly cynical, "Bad Company" paints the Old West as a place full of desperation, petty vices, and a fatal lack of foresight. That can sound grim, but the lively chemistry between Jeff Bridges and Barry Brown keeps it brisk and energetic.

• Starring: Jeff Bridges, Barry Brown, Jim Davis

• Director: Robert Benton

• Year: 1972

• Runtime: 93 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 86%

While "Winchester '73" does have a central storyline — involving Lin McAdam's long hunt for the outlaw Dutch Henry Brown, a man he has a devastating personal connection to — it's also structured as a series of vignettes, following the ownership of a rare "one of 1,000" Winchester rifle, said to be the single most perfect gun ever made. Lin wins it in a shooting contest in Dodge City — one that becomes a tense two-man show between him and Dutch Henry — but via theft, trade, chance, and death, it travels from owner to owner and story to story. This approach lets the movie offer a fascinating kaleidoscopic view of the Old West. The results are unusual and complex, even though some of the portrayals are outdated.

• Starring: James Stewart, Shelley Winters, Dan Duryea

• Director: Anthony Mann

• Year: 1950

• Runtime: 92 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%

This intense and hypnotically shot horror movie might be an unusual Western, but it's also an essential one. Caleb Colton is a sweet, charming young man who proves irresistible to the pretty young Mae and gets bitten for it. Soon, he's swept up into her world of traveling outlaw vampires. But his citizenship there is a tenuous thing, one that may hang on him embracing their violence and bloodthirst and even choosing them over his own family. "Near Dark" has a perfect sense of the Western landscape, and its characters — mortal and immortal — feel like a microcosm of what happens when the Old West meets the New.

• Starring: Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Lance Henriksen

• Director: Kathryn Bigelow

• Year: 1987

• Runtime: 95 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 81%

Frank Usher and his gang of hotheads are aiming to hold up the regular stagecoach, but they wind up with a privately hired one instead, carrying Willard and Doretta Mimms, a honeymooning couple, and rancher Pat Brennan, who just needed a ride. The cowardly Willard quickly suggests the outlaws let him go and hold his wife hostage, demanding a ransom from her wealthy father. Frank is disgusted by this, but he's not one to turn down a good idea. Pat will have to draw on all his honor, courage, and practicality to get himself and Doretta out of this alive. "The Tall T" is a well-crafted look at cowboy virtues put to a nail-biting test.

• Starring: Randolph Scott, Richard Boone, Maureen O'Sullivan

• Director: Budd Boetticher

• Year: 1957

• Runtime: 78 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%

"The Magnificent Seven" remakes Akira Kurosawa's famous "Seven Samurai" as a Western, and the story fits into the genre like it was made for it. The inhabitants of a small Mexican village have suffered through endless devastating bandit attacks, and they're ready to fight back. They don't have much money, but they wind up with an odd assortment of gunfighters — seven men who are either skilled but down on their luck, eager for a fight, or worried they've lost their courage. It all builds up to a high-stakes battle for the village's survival, one that ably balances action with pathos.

• Starring: Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Steve McQueen

• Director: John Sturges

• Year: 1960

• Runtime: 126 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%

Griff Bonnell has tried to put his gunfighting past behind him, but Brockie Drummond — kid brother of the bold, authoritative Jessica Drummond, who all but runs Tombstone — is making it difficult. The wild and cruel Brockie terrorizes the town, but when Griff pistol-whips him to teach him a lesson, Brockie starts concentrating his viciousness on Griff in particular. What complicates their mutual hatred is Jessica, who practically raised her brother but who soon falls for Griff. It's an unusual kind of love triangle, and "Forty Guns" invests it with a lot of emotion and suspense.

• Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Sullivan, Gene Barry

• Director: Samuel Fuller

• Year: 1957

• Runtime: 80 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%

"Brokeback Mountain" is a heartbreaking look at a romance — between cowboys/sheepherders Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist — that persists despite the hostility of its time and place. Jack and Ennis share a brief but heartfelt connection out on the trail, but "real life" seems to demand that they move on and pretend all this never happened ... and pretend to be people they're not. Though each of them marries, they continue to steal time with each other. The festering unhappiness in their lives affects their wives too, with bitterness and distress mounting as the movie goes on. In its plain and unstinting look at the slow unfolding of Jack and Ennis' tragedy, "Brokeback Mountain" hits like a hammer.

• Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger, Linda Cardellini

• Director: Ang Lee

• Year: 2005

• Runtime: 134 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 87%

Homer Bannon is an upstanding, trustworthy, and dutiful rancher, a man who gives his word and means it and who will sacrifice his own business interests to do the right thing. His son, Hud, proves that the apple fell far from the tree. Hud is unscrupulous and selfish — but he's not immune to feeling bitter and hurt about his father's obviously low opinion of him. Things between the two of them come to a head when their ranch turns out to have a serious outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, which could ruin them financially. "Hud" is a thorny story full of difficult emotions and hard-to-resolve family dynamics, all played to perfection.

• Starring: Paul Newman, Melvyn Douglas, Brandon deWilde

• Director: Martin Ritt

• Year: 1963

• Runtime: 112 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 83%

Seven men robbed a Wells Fargo in the town of Silver Springs — and unfortunately for them, the clerk they killed in the process had a very devoted husband, Ben Stride, who's now doggedly determined to hunt down and kill every last one of them. In the middle of his hunt, however, he agrees to escort a greenhorn couple down the border, a task that gives him a few tentative new connections to life. His goal remains the same, however ... and it may be more tangled-up with his new friends than he realizes. Deft character development adds to the poignancy of the tale.

• Starring: Randolph Scott, Gail Russell, Lee Marvin

• Director: Budd Boetticher

• Year: 1956

• Runtime: 78 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%

Infused with a tricky and chilling strand of the supernatural, "High Plains Drifter" frames its (seemingly) nameless gunslinger protagonist as a kind of embodiment of vengeance. He's not a good man — and may not really be a man at all — but he's the terrible force the weak town of Lago needs to protect them from its resident vicious outlaws. The Stranger wrings every possible perk out of the job, but he's also icily determined to face down Stacey Bridges and the Carlin brothers ... maybe after playing with them a little, the way a cat toys with a mouse. The film stands out as a grim and disconcerting drama about consequences and revenge.

• Starring: Clint Eastwood, Verna Bloom, Mariana Hill

• Director: Clint Eastwood

• Year: 1973

• Runtime: 105 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%

Vienna's had a hard life, but when the railroad finally comes, the location of her saloon means she's all set to make a fortune. Unfortunately, she's also made enemies, especially the wealthy, respectable, and bitterly vindictive Emma, who hates that the Dancin' Kid, the outlaw she's infatuated with, loves Vienna instead. The tensions come to a head when Vienna's old lover, Johnny — once a notorious gunfighter, now endeavoring to simply be a guitarist — comes to town at the same time as Emma and her cohort are trying to order Vienna and the Kid out. Joan Crawford makes Vienna a vivid, passionate, dangerous, and morally complex character who will keep you glued to the screen.

• Starring: Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge

• Director: Nicholas Ray

• Year: 1954

• Runtime: 110 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

Steve Judd takes on the dangerous job of escorting a shipment of gold, but he doesn't know that he's brought potential thieves along with him in the form of his old partner, Gil, and Gil's young partner, Heck. Steve and Gil are both getting older, but they're reacting to their years differently. Steve is wistful and ultimately just wants to end up with a life he can be proud of, even if the rewards aren't too tangible, and Gil wants a little more security in this life. He's willing to take the gold in order to get it, and he's coached Heck to go along with him. The journey will put everyone's morals and courage to the test in this nuanced and mournful film.

• Starring: Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, Mariette Hartley

• Director: Sam Peckinpah

• Year: 1962

• Runtime: 94 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

Peter's spindly figure and "girly" interests make him a target for men like Phil Burbank, who can't resist lashing out. Peter and Phil are brought into an unlikely and strange collision when Phil's brother, George, marries Peter's mother, Rose. Under Phil's relentless bullying and negativity, Rose's timidity turns into desperate self-medication. Peter wants to help her — and as he's drawn into a surprisingly intimate relationship with Phil, he looks for the opportunity to do it. Full of fraught relationships, subtle power struggles, and lots of bittersweet longing, "The Power of the Dog" immediately establishes itself as a new classic of the genre.

• Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons

• Director: Jane Campion

• Year: 2021

• Runtime: 128 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

14-year-old Mattie Ross is absolutely determined to find Tom Chaney, the man who killed her father, and make sure he pays for that crime instead of another one. If Texas Ranger LaBoeuf hauls him back to face Texas justice for a Texas crime, that won't satisfy her at all. She attaches herself to LaBoeuf and her chosen U.S. marshal, the ornery Rooster Cogburn, and their team-up becomes the emotional cornerstone of the movie. The movie gets audiences so invested in the characters' fates that it's not enough for them to find Chaney: We need them to find some kind of happiness too. Gorgeous cinematography, a powerful script, and finely crafted performances help make "True Grit" absolutely compelling.

• Starring: Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon

• Directors: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

• Year: 2010

• Runtime: 110 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%

Strange things are afoot in the impoverished Brazilian village of Bacurau. Ordinary tensions are soon drowned out by a surreal and almost feverish paranoia — and the villagers' hyper-alertness is completely justified. There is a reason their connections to the outside world are getting severed, leaving them without phones or internet; the tourists are malicious forces of colonization. It's a Western land-grab plot infused with a distinctly Brazilian perspective and sense of history, and it isn't afraid to go to dark and weird places. "Bacurau" has big ambitions, and it accomplishes them with flair.

• Starring: Sônia Braga, Udo Kier, Bárbara Colen

• Directors: Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles

• Year: 2019

• Runtime: 132 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%

"The Wild Bunch" not only makes its protagonists outlaws, it makes them exceptionally brutal and unscrupulous in the bargain. Even now, the sight of them using human shields is jaw-dropping. But despite all their violence, Pike Bishop and his men have a strange kind of honor and camaraderie, one that former gang member Deke Thornton — now reluctantly working for the law — wishes he could get back to. That honor is put to the ultimate test when one of the gang, Angel, angers General Mapache, and supporting their friend could easily get the rest of them killed. Like the outlaws at its core, "The Wild Bunch" is bleak and vicious, but it's not heartless, and it's always riveting.

• Starring: William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan

• Director: Sam Peckinpah

• Year: 1969

• Runtime: 142 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

No outlaws are as laid-back and charming as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, played by the effortlessly charismatic Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Charm, though, might not be enough to save them from the slow civilizing of the West. The owner of the railroad they've robbed so many times has hired a tireless, nearly superhumanly skilled posse to track them down, and our two rogues are running out of options and corners to hide in. Together with Sundance's girlfriend, Etta, they flee to Bolivia and briefly try to reinvent themselves, but it's hard not to fall back into old habits. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" is funny, wistful, and tragic, and it boasts multiple iconic scenes and quotes.

• Starring: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katharine Ross

• Director: George Roy Hill

• Year: 1969

• Runtime: 110 minutes

• Rating: PG

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%

A low-key approach makes "The Rider" a memorable and delicately crafted neo-Western that feels almost documentary-like in its realism. Rodeo riding left Brady Blackburn with a traumatic brain injury and no real career prospects; he tries to scrape together money to support his family and find opportunities to get back to horses, even as his doctors warn him that riding could exacerbate his seizures and even kill him. The film has a quiet beauty to it — especially in its bittersweet handling of hope and family — and its coverage of a less-explored corner of the modern West makes it particularly valuable.

• Starring: Brady Jandreau, Lilly Jandreau, Tim Jandreau

• Director: Chloé Zhao

• Year: 2017

• Runtime: 104 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%

Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name is as laconic and deadly as ever in this follow-up to "A Fistful of Dollars." Here, he's a bounty hunter — known as Manco — who reluctantly forms a temporary but increasingly respectful partnership with Colonel Douglas Mortimer, another hunter on the same scent. They're both after a notorious and brutal bank robber known as El Indio, whose backstory — as embodied by a particular pocket watch — will make you shudder. Manco and Mortimer have their work cut out for them, but as the spectacular, action-packed climax proves, they're up to the challenge.

• Starring: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Gian Maria Volonté

• Director: Sergio Leone

• Year: 1965

• Runtime: 132 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 91%

The desert town of Sweetwater becomes the center for a struggle in "Once Upon a Time in the West." Frank, a vicious hired killer, will stop at nothing to free up the land for the railroad. An alliance forms against him, made up of a bandit Frank tried to frame, the rightful owner of the Sweetwater land, and a mysterious man nicknamed "Harmonica," who turns out to have a personal connection with Frank. This epic has a lot of draws, including its cinematography and score, but its best aspect might be seeing Henry Fonda in a rare but utterly convincing turn as an ice-cold villain.

• Starring: Claudia Cardinale, Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson

• Director: Sergio Leone

• Year: 1968

• Runtime: 165 minutes

• Rating: PG-13

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%

The tension in a father's conflicted dynamic with his adopted son drives "Red River." Tom Dunson adopted the orphaned Matt on his first trip into Texas, but years later — despite the obvious love between them — their relationship still feels undecided, as if Dunson is weighing whether or not Matt can really fill his shoes. Over the course of a long and desperate cattle drive, he has the chance to decide ... but his pride and rigidity may get in the way of him making the right decision. Both epic and intimate, "Red River" combines adventure and stunning locations with realistic human drama.

• Starring: John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Walter Brennan

• Director: Howard Hawks

• Year: 1948

• Runtime: 127 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%

"A Fistful of Dollars" introduces Clint Eastwood's iconic Man with No Name, and it instantly makes him one of the most indelible Western characters of all time. Here, he's an opportunistic stranger who no sooner hears about a town's tense, violent power struggle than he decides to use it to his own advantage — with the side benefit of leaving the town safer for the ordinary folks he has a soft spot for. Using both his formidable intelligence and his impressive skills as a gunfighter, he plays both sides against the middle, setting them up to tear each other apart.

• Starring: Clint Eastwood, Marianne Koch, Gian Maria Volonté

• Director: Sergio Leone

• Year: 1964

• Runtime: 96 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%

"Stagecoach" has a simple recipe for success: Take a cross-section of everyone's favorite Western movie archetypes — especially the fugitive with a heart of gold and the vulnerable "dance hall girl," who have a sweet and touching romance here — cast them perfectly, put them all on a stagecoach together, and send them on a dangerous trip through a hotly contested part of the frontier. The movie throws plenty of other obstacles at its characters too, including the Ringo Kid's need for revenge against the men who killed his family and the sudden need to deliver one woman's baby. "Stagecoach" delivers both excitement and multiple well-handled emotional arcs.

• Starring: Claire Trevor, John Wayne, Andy Devine

• Director: John Ford

• Year: 1939

• Runtime: 96 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%

Westerns love Wyatt Earp and the story of the gunfight at the OK Corral, and "My Darling Clementine" stands out as one of the best retellings. When the youngest Earp brother, James, is murdered, Wyatt Earp and his other siblings wind up bringing a kind of order to the lawless frontier town of Tombstone — in direct opposition to the murderous Clantons. While tension with the Clantons builds, so does the more complex tension between Wyatt and the testy (and dying) Doc Holliday, as well as Wyatt's sweet romance with Clementine, Doc Hollidays' one-time love. "My Darling Clementine" is gently funny and lovingly characterized, and it makes its legendary Western figures thoroughly human.

• Starring: Henry Fonda, Victor Mature, Linda Darnell

• Director: John Ford

• Year: 1946

• Runtime: 97 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 100%

When Sheriff John T. Chance arrests a rich man's brother for murder, he's letting himself in for a lot of trouble: Nathan Burdette is willing to send a lot of armed men into town to set his brother free. Chance needs some allies of his own, and he winds up with an odd assortment that includes his past-his-prime deputy, the town drunk who craves redemption, and a cocky young gunslinger who wants nothing to do with the job at first. The film has great siege-style action, with our heroes facing off against terrible odds, but the movie's biggest charm is the companionable chemistry between its leads.

• Starring: John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson

• Director: Howard Hawks

• Year: 1959

• Runtime: 141 minutes

• Rating: NR

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%

Cool and controlled bounty hunter Blondie has a mercurial partnership with Tuco, an outlaw with a price on his head: Blondie turns Tuco in, collects the reward, and then rescues him from the hangman's noose. Their fights, however, can turn potentially deadly, and they're on the outs when they discover the location of a stash of stolen Confederate gold — and need each other's help to retrieve it. Their tense alliance is at least better than anything the ruthless, cold-blooded Angel Eyes — also on the trail of the gold — can offer them. The movie delivers pulse-pounding excitement and pure Western grit while also providing a stellar score and awe-inspiring cinematography.

• Starring: Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef

• Director: Sergio Leone

• Year: 1966

• Runtime: 161 minutes

• Rating: R

• Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%