Top 100 Westerns

Post Reply
Big Magilla
Site Admin
Posts: 19318
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:22 pm
Location: Jersey Shore

Post by Big Magilla »

MovieWes wrote:I hate Shane. It's one of the blandest, most overrated films I've ever seen and I don't get why people love it so much. Pretty much the only good thing about it was Jack Palance. I basically wanted to bitch-slap Brandon De Wilde everytime he was on-screen. What an annoying little kid. How that little fucker ever got an Oscar nomination for that irritating role is beyond me.
Ooh.

Shane is definitely one of the best westerns ever made, though my top pick would be The Searchers.

I loved Alan Ladd, Van Heflin and Brandon de Wilde and merely liked Jack Palnce. The one who seemed out of place to me was Jean Arthur.
Big Magilla
Site Admin
Posts: 19318
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:22 pm
Location: Jersey Shore

Post by Big Magilla »

rain Bard wrote:One big head-scratcher for me is noticing a nothing like Angel and the Badman coming in ahead of four great Anthony Mann films: Devil's Doorway, Bend of the River, the Naked Spur and the Man From Laramie. And though it's true I've never heard of, much less seen, a good number of these selections, I contend that any such list that includes Young Guns but refuses to acknowledge Dead Man or El Topo is dead to me.

I'm assuming you disqualify the Last Picture Show as a Western for the same reasons that some might question Bad Day At Black Rock, Thunderheart, Lonely Are the Brave or No Country For Old Men; wrong time period. But I'm having trouble understanding why the Treasure of Sierra Madre might not qualify as a Western. It fits every possible genre requirement I can think of off the top of my head.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre takes place in 1925 Meixco - wrong time and place to qualify as a film about "the old West" which ended roughly around 1912.

Giant, of course, really isn't a "western" either. Bad Day at Black Rock, Thunderheart, Lonely Are the Brave and No Country for Old Men don't qualify either.

Young Guns on any list, let alone one that ignores Anthony Mann is a joke. Not only are the great Mann-Stewart westerns missing, but so is Man of the West as is The Hanging Tree, another great Gary Cooper's late career western.

Now if they had called this the best films set in the Western U.S. and Mexico... but even so, there is no justification for including The Last of the Mohicans on such a list.
User avatar
MovieWes
Professor
Posts: 2019
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 12:33 pm
Location: San Antonio, Texas, USA
Contact:

Post by MovieWes »

I hate Shane. It's one of the blandest, most overrated films I've ever seen and I don't get why people love it so much. Pretty much the only good thing about it was Jack Palance. I basically wanted to bitch-slap Brandon De Wilde everytime he was on-screen. What an annoying little kid. How that little fucker ever got an Oscar nomination for that irritating role is beyond me.

However, the biggest issue I have with the top 10 is this: how in the hell did Kevin Fucking Costner get two films in the top 10? If anyone deserves two films in the top 10, it should be John Ford. Even Sergio Leone, Howard Hawks, or Clint Eastwood are more deserving of two films in the top 10 than Kevin Fucking Costner.




Edited By MovieWes on 1215296416
"Young men make wars and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution." -- Alec Guinness (Lawrence of Arabia)
HarryGoldfarb
Adjunct
Posts: 1071
Joined: Fri Jan 10, 2003 4:50 pm
Location: Colombia
Contact:

Post by HarryGoldfarb »

Big Magilla wrote:Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The Last Picture Show are not really westerns and there is nothing at all western about The Last of the Mohicans which takes palce in upsate New York. I guess they were confused by the Indians!
Does Giant also qualifies as a western? never would have thought that...

I like the inclusion (though quite high) of the 3:10 to Yuma remake, a film that I enjoyed so, so much, one of the more pleasent recent surprises.

Even in a contemporary scenario: Dances with Wolves over Unforgiven (the latter, the film that actually rescued the Western as a genre)??????
"If you place an object in a museum, does that make this object a piece of art?" - The Square (2017)
rain Bard
Associate
Posts: 1611
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 6:55 pm
Location: San Francisco
Contact:

Post by rain Bard »

One big head-scratcher for me is noticing a nothing like Angel and the Badman coming in ahead of four great Anthony Mann films: Devil's Doorway, Bend of the River, the Naked Spur and the Man From Laramie. And though it's true I've never heard of, much less seen, a good number of these selections, I contend that any such list that includes Young Guns but refuses to acknowledge Dead Man or El Topo is dead to me.

I'm assuming you disqualify the Last Picture Show as a Western for the same reasons that some might question Bad Day At Black Rock, Thunderheart, Lonely Are the Brave or No Country For Old Men; wrong time period. But I'm having trouble understanding why the Treasure of Sierra Madre might not qualify as a Western. It fits every possible genre requirement I can think of off the top of my head.
Big Magilla
Site Admin
Posts: 19318
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:22 pm
Location: Jersey Shore

Post by Big Magilla »

The list kind of explains why there are so few good westerns being written these days. The writers themselves don't have a clue.

Shane, High Noon and The Searchers are a fine start, but then come Butch Cassidy and Dances With Wolves ahead of Red River and way ahead of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and Ride the High Country.

Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The Last Picture Show are not really westerns and there is nothing at all western about The Last of the Mohicans which takes palce in upsate New York. I guess they were confused by the Indians!
User avatar
Eric
Tenured
Posts: 2749
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 11:18 pm
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Contact:

Post by Eric »

Big Magilla wrote:WWA (Western Writers of America) Top 100 Westerns

1. Shane
... aaaand I pretty much checked out there.
Big Magilla
Site Admin
Posts: 19318
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 3:22 pm
Location: Jersey Shore

Post by Big Magilla »

WWA (Western Writers of America) Top 100 Westerns

1. Shane
2. High Noon
3. The Searchers
4. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
5. Dances with Wolves
6. The Wild Bunch
7. Red River
8. Tombstone
9. The Magnificent Seven
10. Open Range

11. Treasure of the Sierra Madre
12. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
13. True Grit
14. The Shootist
15. Stagecoach (1939)
16. Unforgiven
17. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
18. The Outlaw Josey Wales
19. Ride the High Country
20. Jeremiah Johnson

21. The Cowboys
22. My Darling Clementine
23. 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
24. Rio Bravo
25. The Ox-Bow Incident
26. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
27. Lonely are the Brave
28. Will Penny
29. Hud
30. Winchester ‘73

31. Little Big Man
32. 3:10 to Yuma (1957)
33. The Grey Fox
34. The Alamo (1960)
35. Silverado
36. Ulzana’s Raid
37. Once upon a Time in the West
38. Rio Grande
39. The Rounders
40. The Big Country

41. The Hi-Lo Country
42. Duel in the Sun
43. Fort Apache
44. The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
45. The Last Picture Show
46. The Grapes of Wrath
47. Bad Day at Black Rock
48. The Long Riders
49. The Tall T
50. Cat Ballou

51. Tumbleweeds
52. The Iron Horse
53. Man of the West
54. Seven Men from Now
55. The Big Trail
56. Three Godfathers
57. Hell’s Hinges
58. The Wind (1928)
59. The Westerner
60. Support Your Local Sheriff

61. They Died with Their Boots On
62. Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
63. The Professionals
64. The Cheyenne Social Club
65. El Dorado
66. Thunderheart
67. The Virginian (1929)
68. A Man Called Horse
69. Hombre
70. Barbarosa

71. Chisum
72. The Big Sky
73. Young Guns
74. Destry Rides Again
75. Junior Bonner
76. Angel and the Badman
77. Warlock
78. The Misfits
79. No Country for Old Men
80. Monte Walsh

81. Four Faces West
82. The Naked Spur
83. The Gunfighter
84. High Plains Drifter
85. Devil’s Doorway
86. Law and Order (1932)
87. Coroner Creek
88. Valdez is Coming
89. Hondo
90. The Man from Laramie

91. The Unforgiven (1960)
92. Broken Arrow
93. Bend of the River
94. Giant
95. Blazing Saddles
96. The Culpepper Cattle Company
97. Three Bad Men
98. Pursued
99. McCabe and Mrs. Miller
100. The Great Train Robbery (1903)
Post Reply

Return to “Other Film Discussions”