Best Westerns

by sir_runrun_shaw | created - 27 Apr 2018 | updated - 3 months ago | Public

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1. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)

R | 121 min | Adventure, Crime, Drama

77 Metascore

Ranch foreman Pete Perkins looks to fulfill the promise to his recently deceased best friend by burying him in his hometown in Mexico.

Director: Tommy Lee Jones | Stars: Tommy Lee Jones, Barry Pepper, Dwight Yoakam, January Jones

Votes: 41,877 | Gross: $5.02M

2. The Searchers (1956)

Passed | 119 min | Adventure, Drama, Western

94 Metascore

An American Civil War veteran embarks on a years-long journey to rescue his niece from the Comanches after the rest of his brother's family is massacred in a raid on their Texas farm.

Director: John Ford | Stars: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Ward Bond

Votes: 96,241

3. Johnny Guitar (1954)

Not Rated | 110 min | Drama, Western

83 Metascore

After helping a wounded gang member, a strong-willed female saloon owner is wrongly suspected of murder and bank robbery by a lynch mob.

Director: Nicholas Ray | Stars: Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge, Scott Brady

Votes: 19,741

4. The Wild Bunch (1969)

R | 135 min | Action, Adventure, Drama

98 Metascore

An aging group of outlaws look for one last big score as the "traditional" American West is disappearing around them.

Director: Sam Peckinpah | Stars: William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien

Votes: 90,335 | Gross: $12.06M

5. Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)

Passed | 81 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery

A one-armed stranger comes to a tiny town possessing a terrible past they want to keep secret, by violent means if necessary.

Director: John Sturges | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Anne Francis, Dean Jagger

Votes: 24,247

6. The Professionals (1966)

PG-13 | 117 min | Action, Adventure, Drama

75 Metascore

An arrogant Texas millionaire hires four adventurers to rescue his kidnapped wife from a notorious Mexican bandit.

Director: Richard Brooks | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, Woody Strode

Votes: 18,827 | Gross: $19.54M

7. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

Approved | 123 min | Drama, Western

94 Metascore

A senator returns to a Western town for the funeral of an old friend and tells the story of his origins.

Director: John Ford | Stars: James Stewart, John Wayne, Vera Miles, Lee Marvin

Votes: 82,266

8. High Noon (1952)

PG | 85 min | Drama, Thriller, Western

89 Metascore

A town Marshal, despite the disagreements of his newlywed bride and the townspeople around him, must face a gang of deadly killers alone at "high noon" when the gang leader, an outlaw he "sent up" years ago, arrives on the noon train.

Director: Fred Zinnemann | Stars: Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Thomas Mitchell, Lloyd Bridges

Votes: 110,139 | Gross: $9.45M

9. Rio Bravo (1959)

Passed | 141 min | Drama, Western

93 Metascore

A small-town sheriff in the American West enlists the help of a disabled man, a drunk, and a young gunfighter in his efforts to hold in jail the brother of the local bad guy.

Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson

Votes: 68,033 | Gross: $12.54M

10. Ride the High Country (1962)

Approved | 94 min | Drama, Western

92 Metascore

An ex-union soldier is hired to transport gold from a mining community through dangerous territory. But what he doesn't realize is that his partner and old friend is plotting to double-cross him.

Director: Sam Peckinpah | Stars: Joel McCrea, Randolph Scott, Mariette Hartley, Ron Starr

Votes: 14,834

11. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

PG-13 | 166 min | Western

82 Metascore

A mysterious stranger with a harmonica joins forces with a notorious desperado to protect a beautiful widow from a ruthless assassin working for the railroad.

Director: Sergio Leone | Stars: Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards

Votes: 349,002 | Gross: $5.32M

12. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)

Approved | 178 min | Adventure, Western

90 Metascore

A bounty hunting scam joins two men in an uneasy alliance against a third in a race to find a fortune in gold buried in a remote cemetery.

Director: Sergio Leone | Stars: Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef, Aldo Giuffrè

Votes: 810,905 | Gross: $6.10M

13. Forty Guns (1957)

Not Rated | 80 min | Western

Showdown in Arizona between the Bonnell brothers, U.S.Marshals, and Jessica Drummond, the iron-fist rancher who controls the territory.

Director: Samuel Fuller | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Sullivan, Dean Jagger, John Ericson

Votes: 6,216

14. A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

R | 99 min | Action, Drama, Western

65 Metascore

A wandering gunfighter plays two rival families against each other in a town torn apart by greed, pride, and revenge.

Director: Sergio Leone | Stars: Clint Eastwood, Gian Maria Volontè, Marianne Koch, Wolfgang Lukschy

Votes: 232,579 | Gross: $14.50M

15. 3:10 to Yuma (1957)

Not Rated | 92 min | Drama, Thriller, Western

80 Metascore

Broke small-time rancher Dan Evans is hired by the stagecoach line to put big-time captured outlaw leader Ben Wade on the 3:10 train to Yuma but Wade's gang tries to free him.

Director: Delmer Daves | Stars: Glenn Ford, Van Heflin, Felicia Farr, Leora Dana

Votes: 21,638

16. Bone Tomahawk (2015)

Not Rated | 132 min | Drama, Horror, Western

72 Metascore

In the dying days of the old west, an elderly sheriff and his posse set out to rescue their town's doctor from cannibalistic cave dwellers.

Director: S. Craig Zahler | Stars: Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox, Richard Jenkins

Votes: 117,899

17. The Gunfighter (1950)

Approved | 85 min | Western

94 Metascore

Notorious gunfighter Jimmy Ringo rides into town to find his true love, who doesn't want to see him. He hasn't come looking for trouble, but trouble finds him around every corner.

Director: Henry King | Stars: Gregory Peck, Helen Westcott, Millard Mitchell, Jean Parker

Votes: 12,518

18. Red River (1948)

Passed | 133 min | Drama, Western

96 Metascore

Dunson leads a cattle drive, the culmination of over 14 years of work, to its destination in Missouri. But his tyrannical behavior along the way causes a mutiny, led by his adopted son.

Directors: Howard Hawks, Arthur Rosson | Stars: John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Joanne Dru, Walter Brennan

Votes: 34,360

19. Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)

Passed | 122 min | Biography, Drama, Western

56 Metascore

Lawman Wyatt Earp and outlaw Doc Holliday form an unlikely alliance which culminates in their participation in the legendary Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

Director: John Sturges | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming, Jo Van Fleet

Votes: 17,418 | Gross: $11.75M

20. Last Train from Gun Hill (1959)

Passed | 95 min | Western

A marshal tries to bring the son of an old friend, an autocratic cattle baron, to justice for his role in the rape and murder of the marshal's Native American wife.

Director: John Sturges | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, Carolyn Jones, Earl Holliman

Votes: 8,805 | Gross: $2.50M

21. Stagecoach (1939)

Passed | 96 min | Adventure, Drama, Western

93 Metascore

A group of people traveling on a stagecoach find their journey complicated by the threat of Geronimo and learn something about each other in the process.

Director: John Ford | Stars: John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Andy Devine, John Carradine

Votes: 53,737

22. The Ox-Bow Incident (1942)

Passed | 75 min | Drama, Western

When a posse captures three men suspected of killing a local farmer, they become strongly divided over whether or not to lynch the men.

Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Mary Beth Hughes, Anthony Quinn

Votes: 24,949 | Gross: $1.64M

23. Day of the Outlaw (1959)

Not Rated | 92 min | Drama, Western

Blaise Starrett is a rancher at odds with homesteaders when outlaws hold up the small town. The outlaws are held in check only by their notorious leader, but he is diagnosed with a fatal wound and the town is a powder keg waiting to blow.

Director: André De Toth | Stars: Robert Ryan, Burl Ives, Tina Louise, Alan Marshal

Votes: 4,423

24. For a Few Dollars More (1965)

R | 132 min | Drama, Western

74 Metascore

Two bounty hunters with the same intentions team up to track down a gang of outlaws led by a psychotic Mexican bandit, who is plotting an audacious bank robbery.

Director: Sergio Leone | Stars: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Gian Maria Volontè, Mara Krupp

Votes: 274,559 | Gross: $15.00M

25. The Good the Bad the Weird (2008)

R | 130 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy

69 Metascore

The story of two outlaws and a bounty hunter in 1940s Manchuria and their rivalry to possess a treasure map while being pursued by the Japanese army and Chinese bandits.

Director: Jee-woon Kim | Stars: Song Kang-ho, Lee Byung-hun, Jung Woo-sung, Yun Je-mun

Votes: 37,928 | Gross: $0.13M

26. Winchester '73 (1950)

Passed | 92 min | Action, Drama, Western

A cowboy's obsession with a stolen rifle leads to a bullet-ridden odyssey through the American West.

Director: Anthony Mann | Stars: James Stewart, Shelley Winters, Dan Duryea, Stephen McNally

Votes: 21,972

27. Buchanan Rides Alone (1958)

Approved | 80 min | Drama, Western

Texan Tom Buchanan is heading back home with enough money to start his own ranch, but when he stops in the crooked town of Agry, he's robbed and framed for murder.

Director: Budd Boetticher | Stars: Randolph Scott, Craig Stevens, Barry Kelley, Tol Avery

Votes: 3,227

28. The Bravados (1958)

Approved | 98 min | Drama, Western

A man is chasing four outlaws who killed his wife and finds them in a small town's jail, but they escape to Mexico.

Director: Henry King | Stars: Gregory Peck, Joan Collins, Stephen Boyd, Albert Salmi

Votes: 6,397

29. No Name on the Bullet (1959)

Passed | 77 min | Western

When hired killer John Gant rides into Lordsburg, the town's folk become paranoid as each leading citizen has enemies capable of using the services of a professional killer for personal revenge.

Director: Jack Arnold | Stars: Audie Murphy, Charles Drake, Joan Evans, Virginia Grey

Votes: 3,058

30. Blood on the Moon (1948)

Passed | 88 min | Drama, Western

Unemployed cowhand Jim Garry is hired by his dishonest friend Tate Riling as muscle in a dispute between homesteaders and cattleman John Lufton.

Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Barbara Bel Geddes, Robert Preston, Walter Brennan

Votes: 3,487

31. The Great Silence (1968)

Not Rated | 105 min | Drama, Western

A mute gunfighter defends a young widow and a group of outlaws against a gang of bounty killers in the winter of 1898, and a grim, tense struggle unfolds.

Director: Sergio Corbucci | Stars: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Klaus Kinski, Frank Wolff, Vonetta McGee

Votes: 18,100 | Gross: $0.05M

32. Western Union (1941)

Passed | 95 min | History, Western

When Edward Creighton leads the construction of the Western Union to unite East with West, he hires a Western reformed outlaw and a tenderfoot Eastern surveyor.

Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Robert Young, Randolph Scott, Dean Jagger, Virginia Gilmore

Votes: 3,279

33. When the Daltons Rode (1940)

Approved | 81 min | Western

Fictionalized story of how the Dalton brothers were wronged by a crooked development company and became outlaws when the corrupt local courts offered them no justice.

Director: George Marshall | Stars: Randolph Scott, Kay Francis, Brian Donlevy, George Bancroft

Votes: 907

34. 3 Godfathers (1948)

Passed | 106 min | Drama, Western

82 Metascore

Three outlaws on the run risk their freedom and their lives to return a newborn to civilization.

Director: John Ford | Stars: John Wayne, Pedro Armendáriz, Harry Carey Jr., Ward Bond

Votes: 10,607



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