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When Richard Attenborough first read Louis Fischer’s biography of Indian activist and attorney Mahatma Gandhi in the early 1960s, he was around 20 years into an acting career that included work with David Lean (“In Which We Serve”), Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (“A Matter of Life and Death”), and John Sturges (“The Great Escape”). Attenborough hadn’t directed anything himself at that point, but discovering Gandhi’s story gave him the desire to mount a biopic on the epic scale of his mentors.

It would take Attenborough another couple of decades to find the necessary funding, but when he finally made “Gandhi” in 1982, it was worth the wait, both for him and for audiences worldwide. A literate three-hour drama for adults that was, amazingly, a box-office blockbuster as well as an awards behemoth, “Gandhi” was one of those rare films that seemed to please just about everybody.

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VistaVision is back. Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” not only earned Lol Crawley the Best Cinematography Oscar but has sparked a renewed interest in the format — one that is now being further fanned by unconfirmed reports of the 35mm horizontal format also being used in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Bugonia,” Alejandro González Iñárritu’s untitled 2026 film, and Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights.”

The timing is perfect, therefore, for the TCM Classic Film Festival to screen two rare Paramount VistaVision prints of “We’re No Angels” (1955) and “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” (1957) on April 26 at the Tcl Chinese Theater. What’s more, the movies will be projected with special horizontal projectors, which haven’t been used since the 1950s.

Crawley will introduce “Gunfight,” the Western from director John Sturges (“The Magnificent Seven”), which teams Burt Lancaster as Wyatt Earp and Kirk Douglas as Doc Holliday, and Charlotte Barker,...

At the outset of the 1960s, the United States felt poised for its greatest decade yet or armageddon. The Soviet Union's launch of the Earth satellite Sputnik in 1957 had placed many Americans on edge. How had the Russkies beaten the most prosperous country on the planet into space, and what were our leaders doing to counteract this disaster? This led to one of the most contentious and closest Presidential elections in U.S. history, which found Democrat John F. Kennedy narrowly prevailing over Republican Richard M. Nixon. Many were hopeful that the country was in the right, aspirational hands; almost just as many were convinced we'd consigned the country to certain doom.

In times like these, people used to go to their local movie theater to escape the fresh hell of the outside world. They'd line for any entertainment that promised some kind of catharsis. Romances, comedies, romantic comedies, horror flicks,...

Not every actor can be one of the greats, but they make a memorable impression based on how filmmakers play to their strengths. Charles Bronson is one of those actors. He didn't exactly break the mold as an expressive actor, but there's a flexibility in his stoicism that could present a two-way mirror depending on the kind of character he was playing. Legends like Sergio Leone ("Once Upon a Time in the West") and John Sturges ("The Great Escape") knew as much.

If there's one film that defines the definitive Bronson look and feel, it's Michael Winnerman's revenge fantasy "Death Wish." Paul Kersey is an architect turned nighttime vigilante who vows to clean up the streets after his wife is murdered and his daughter is sexually assaulted during a home invasion. Not much changes when it comes to Bronson's performance across the increasingly ridiculous five film series, as the character's quiet bloodthirst remains fairly consistent.

John Wayne was arguably Hollywood’s undisputed Western cowboy, known for playing tough lawmen and fearless gunfighters. From Stagecoach to Red River to Rio Grande, he represented the spirit of frontier justice, becoming the face of a genre that defined American cinema. Audiences expected him on horseback, rifle in hand, bringing order to lawless lands. But in 1952, Wayne stepped out of the Old West and into modern America’s political battlefield.

Big Jim McLain was a big departure from the films that made Wayne a star. Set in Hawaii, the film cast Wayne as a Cold War enforcer, eliminating traitors and exposing threats to national security. It was a role that aligned with his real-life politics, but it also marked a rare moment in his career. And while the film performed well at the box office, it would be more than two decades before Wayne played another modern-day officer.

Big...

Scottish-American actor David McCallum, who passed away in 2023 at age 90, was a fixture of the small screen for over six decades. Despite making his breakout role as international secret agent Illya Kuryakin in the spy drama The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in the 1960s, he was probably most famous to 21st-century audiences as the eccentric but brilliant medical examiner Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard on the police procedural series NCIS, for which he was a regular cast member for 20 seasons until his death.

But even before either of these TV shows hit the airwaves, McCallum starred in one of the most famous Hollywood films of the 1960s: the World War II prison film The Great Escape. The 1963 movie from director John Sturges is a fictionalized depiction of the real mass escape of dozens of Allied troops from a German Pow camp in 1944. Known for its ensemble cast that includes McCallum,...

We live in an era of streaming services with enough content to satisfy viewers for at least five lifetimes. Unfortunately, the content is spread across different platforms, each requiring monthly fees that can add up to hundreds of dollars if you're not careful.

(In Morpheus's voice) What if we told you there was a free way to watch many of your favorite movies? Well, there is. YouTube comes chock full of blockbuster movies, all available for the same price as a smile. That's right, gratis. Gratuit. Grátis. Kostenlos. In short, free.

Of course, the caveat is you might feel overwhelmed with over 200 films to choose from. Luckily, we've assembled a stellar list of the 15 best movies you can watch on YouTube for free, which should help pare down your Friday night options or, at the very least, help steer you down the right course.

Read more: Here's Why Movie Dialogue...

As he entered the elder statesman phase of his career, Spencer Tracy often played men of integrity whose gruff exterior masked a noble heart. Stanley Kramer used Tracy as the moral center of well-intentioned "message movies" like Inherit the Wind, Judgment at Nuremberg, and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, while comedies like Father of the Bride, Pat and Mike, and Kramer's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World utilized this persona for laughs. Yet that late-career gravitas was perhaps never put to better use than in John Sturges's Western noir Bad Day at Black Rock. At a brisk 81-minutes, it's a story of racism and injustice that employs the moral weight audiences associate with Tracy to make its message clear without being preachy.

In 1960, one of the greatest Westerns of all time, The Magnificent Seven, premiered in theaters, yet many don't realize the movie is the first in a franchise of underrated Westerns. The Magnificent Seven is directed by John Sturges and based on the 1954 Akira Kurosawa movie, Seven Samurai. The film centers on a Mexican village being terrorized by a man named Calvera and his team of cruel outlaws. As a result, the villagers hire seven American gunslingers to protect them. The cowboys not only teach the villagers to protect themselves, but take down Calvera once and for all.

Though it may seem surprising now, upon its release, The Magnificent Seven was something of a failure. It did poorly at the box office in the United States and Canada, and only made a profit due to success in Europe and Asia. Furthermore, reviews were mixed. While some praised The Magnificent Seven for its high-energy first half,...

One of the greatest Westerns to feature Doc Holliday will soon hit a major streaming platform. 1957's Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, starring Kirk Douglas as the famed historical character, will arrive on Prime Video on December 1.

Directed by John Sturges from a screenplay by novelist Leon Uris, the movie was a remake of 1939's Frontier Marshall and John Ford's 1946 film My Darling, and is loosely based on an actual event in Tombstone, Arizona. Four lawmen, including temporary assistant marshal Holliday, engaged in a gun battle with five members of a loosely organized group of cattle rustlers and horse thieves called the Cowboys on October 26, 1881. Featuring alongside Douglas, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral stars Burt Lancaster as Marshal Wyatt Earp, John Hudson as Virgil Earp, and DeForest Kelley as Morgan Earp. Lyle Bettger, Dennis Hopper, Jack Elam, and John Ireland play members of the Cochise County Cowboys.

The 1960s proved to be an incredible time period for cinema, with the decade producing some of the most acclaimed and widely celebrated films ever made, regardless of genre. From seminal spaghetti Western outings in the vein of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly and nerve-jangling horrors like Psycho all the way to mind-bending science fiction offerings such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, the decade played host to a number of iconic and culturally influential movies that have stood the test of time to earn status as undisputed cinematic classics.

War movies were decidedly not exempt from this status quo, an unsurprising state of affairs given the social climate of the 1960s. The decade witnessed the debuts of several wildly successful and influential war films, many of which are widely regarded as some of the best war movies of all time. Producing an immersive snapshot of armed conflict that...

Ayrton Senna will be brought to the screen in Netflix’s miniseries Senna, played by Gabriel Leone. The actor earlier played the role of racing driver Alfonso de Portago in Michael Mann’s Ferrari. The film follows the life of Senna from the beginning of his career to the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.

Gabriel Leone in a still from Senna | Credits: Netflix

Senna met a tragic end during the San Marino Grand Prix in Italy in 1994 when his car collided with a concrete wall at high speed. The crash occurred when he was leading in the seventh lap. The incident happened a day after fellow driver Roland Ratzenberger met a similar fate when he struck a concrete wall during the second qualifying session.

The new series hits the streamer on November 29. The life of the racing champion was earlier covered in the 2010 BAFTA-winning documentary film Senna. Apart from this heart-wrenching story,...

Quick Links How Clint Eastwood and Kurt Russell Raised the Bar For New Westerns How This Father/Son Collaboration Honors Eastwood's Vision How Forsaken Honors Eastwood's '90s Vision of the West Where the Two Films Differ Forsaken Is A Hidden Gem On Several Levels

While many associate it with wagons and shootouts, the Western genre has been one of the best-written in film history, as shown in classics like High Noon, The Searchers, and True Grit. Exploring themes like revenge, justice, prejudice, compassion, and redemption, the West has made for a fantastic backdrop for character studies and period pieces. Although not as revered as the 20th century, the last twenty-four years have delivered some great Westerns, including an overlooked 2015 gem.

The Western genre has played host to some of the greatest creators in Hollywood history, from directors like John Sturges, John Ford, and Sergio Leone to stars like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood.

For as long as cinema has existed, the Western has been prevalent and at the forefront of new developments in cinematic storytelling. From editing to camera to story, as film has evolved, so has the western. With a long history of amazing Westerns dating back to even before The Great Train Robbery in 1903, there comes a great deal of both triumphs and failures. These often range from an innocent crime such as poor pacing to malicious ones such as the treatment of Native Americans. This leaves more than enough projects on the table and ready for re-imagining.

Unfortunately, in our current cinematic landscape, the western has fallen out of favor as a more dated genre. This perspective ignores the ways in which modern westerns have been able to subvert and contradict their predecessors in a highly fruitful manner. The Coen brothers' True Grit exemplified this and managed to succeed as...

It is a piece of public knowledge that the Japanese master filmmaker Akira Kurosawa inspired the Hollywood filmmakers from John Sturges to George Lucas whose original “Star Wars” (1977) was “The Hidden Fortress” (1957) in space. Just as well, Kurosawa himself was inspired by the literature coming from the West, from Shakespeare to the Russian classics, and a lot of his work is based on their writings.

Once again, the western world comes back as an inspiration for a Japanese filmmaker, but this time in the form of Kevin Costner‘s “Dances with Wolves” (1990) which got a Japanese “reading” from the scriptwriter Masaya Ozaki and the director Hiroyuki Nakao with “Sisam”. After the national premiere in mid-September, the film was selected for Hawaii International Film Festival where it has the international premiere.

Sisam is screening at Hawai’i International Film Festival

Hokaido, Edo period. The Matsumae clan prospers from the trade with the indigenous Ainu people.

Gunfight at the O. K. Corral is a 1957 Western written by novelist Leon Uris, produced by Hal Wallis for Paramount, and directed by John Sturges, starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. It is based on the true event of the same name in 1881 in Tombstone, Arizona, and is the first of two films about the same story directed by John Sturges.

This piece was originally published in Issue 5 of Notebook magazine as part of a broader exploration of the instructional form. The magazine is available via direct subscription or in select stores around the world.On October 18, 1962, Twa flight 801 from Rome touched down at New York’s Idlewild Airport. Among the passengers was an actress by the name of Dolores Hart, and she was more anxious on the ground than she was in the air. Hart was the star of MGM’s forthcoming sex romp, Come Fly With Me, about three airline hostesses looking to score rich husbands. The film had wrapped in Vienna in August, and Hart was scheduled for a grueling cross-country promotional campaign. But that wasn’t what had her anxious. Just days before her 24th birthday, Hart was wrestling with the idea of ditching the film industry and—despite smooching Elvis Presley in Loving You, defending a...

Despite Tombstone and Gunfight At The O.K. Corral portraying the iconic Earp gunfight, the real event didn't take place at the O.K. Corral. The historical inaccuracy of both films stems from the depiction of a lengthy stand-off rather than the quick, actual encounter. The Wild West was not as lawless as portrayed in Westerns, with many towns having ordinances against carrying firearms.

Tombstone and its 1957 predecessor, Gunfight At The O.K. Corral, are two of the most famous dramatizations of the life of notorious, gunslinging lawman, Wyatt Earp. The Kirk Douglas movie is a quintessential Western classic, while Tombstones growth in popularity has deemed it a cult hit. Both revolve around the same event lifted from Earps posthumous biography: a shoot-out that occurred in the town of Tombstone, Arizona. And yet, despite this historical context, both movies make a crucial mistake with their stories.

In Tombstone, on October 26th 1881, Earp...

Akira Kurosawas Seven Samurai is known as one of the best action films ever made a must-watch for any cinephile, those in film classes, or action/samurai movie lovers. That being said, this means that many covet the chance to own such an iconic piece of media in physical form, which they now get to, in 4K.

Blu-ray has just announced that Seven Samurai will be released once again in 4K Blu-ray and on regular Blu-ray on Oct. 21 for its 70th anniversary, marking a huge milestone for such a beloved film. It is the British Film Institute's best-selling Blu-ray, VHS, and DVD release of all time, and will also be the first release ever of the 4K Blu-ray in the United Kingdom. After being newly restored by Toho, Japan, it had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.

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Related 10 Best Samurai Movies (That Aren't Directed by Akira Kurosawa...

Is there a more iconic American actor than Clint Eastwood? Indeed, his name has been at the forefront of many discussions of the most influential and iconic actors on the screen. His career spans decades of content curated to his strong persona and clear artistic direction when behind the camera. Still, one genre that Eastwood has become synonymous with is the Western; both the starting point and the final farewell of his career have been steeped in the genre.

We will examine Eastwood's impact on the Western and outline how you can stream all of his movies in the genre online; what better way to celebrate the American icon?

How to Watch Every Clint Eastwood Western

The below lists every Western where Clint Eastwood had a prominent role. This excludes his early appearances in Star in the Dust and The First Traveling Saleslady, with an uncredited role in one and...

The actor-director’s second film behind the camera is a quirky spin on the genre given true grit by its magnetic heroine

On the surface, The Dead Don’t Hurt, the second directorial venture from Viggo Mortensen, has the weathered, leathery look of a traditional Hollywood western. The story of a rocky romance between a spirited, rebellious woman and a strong, silent man, the film was shot, in imposing widescreen, largely on location in Durango, Mexico, a region that also provided the backdrop for numerous classics of the genre. John Sturges’s The Magnificent Seven, Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly all made use of the wide open sky, sweeping vistas and photogenically phallic geological formations. There’s a rough-hewn drama to the look of the land, with jutting rocky outcrops contrasted against the squat,...

When Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, and Hideo Oguni were writing the screenplay for their 1954 epic "Seven Samurai," they couldn't have predicted its lasting influence on cinema. Not only did Kurosawa's masterful direction alter and revolutionize the way action sequences would be shot, but the premise became a reliable and lasting template that multiple other filmmakers would employ in the ensuing decades. For those unlucky enough to have never seen "Seven Samurai," the setup is simple: a remote farming village is regularly looted by passing bandits, leaving them destitute. Unable to withstand another attack, the villagers gather up their modest means and hire seven rogue samurai to protect them. The samurai know that the job won't pay, but each one has their own reasons for joining the cause. Using their cunning and limited means, the samurai repel the bandit attack.

Most recently, the "Seven Samurai" premise was transposed onto Zack Snyder's "Rebel Moon.

As expansive and iconic as its title suggests, Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West certainly seemed to be written in John Ford’s blood, from the vast wide-angle visions of Monument Valley that Leone and cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli luxuriated in, to the railroad-based, future-of-America economic landscape that serves as a backdrop to a number of bandit-versus-bandit power plays. Henry Fonda, with that methodical, stately stroll of his and those killer blue eyes barely visible from under the rim of his hat, can be seen and heard throughout, sending a shiver of great nostalgia up one’s spine. Ripened and tanned by years of desert sunlight, Ford’s Wyatt Earp is back in the saddle again.

But that particular pace and posture that Fonda had become known for in such films as My Darling Clementine, matched with the devious glint in those baby blues, now took...

Westerns have reigned supreme as one of the most popular film genres and, ever since the Silent Era, they have remained a beloved favorite among film fanatics. The classic genre was initially established by pioneer filmmakers such as John Ford, Howard Hawks, and John Sturges. Later, the genre evolved and covered new territory thanks to notable names including Mel Brooks and Quentin Tarantino. Between the 1930s and 1960s, movies known as "buddy films" became prominent in cinema and eventually found their way into the Western genre with classics like Rio Bravo and Buck and the Preacher.

There wasn't a more capable director of massive, widescreen Westerns working in Hollywood during the 1950s and '60s than John Sturges. Whether classical ("Gunfight at the O.K. Corral") or somewhat unconventional ("Bad Day at Black Rock"), Sturges could frame a mountainous expanse or stage a gunfight with the best of them. He thrived when working with big casts and specialized in discovering stirring nuances in characters that would've been walking cliches in more typical genre flicks.

Sturges was also efficient, which came in handy when managing expensive studio productions populated with big egos. His biggest challenge in this department might've been "The Magnificent Seven," the 1960 remake of Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece "Seven Samurai." Yul Brynner, then a hugely popular movie star (largely on the strength of his Academy Award-winning performance in "The King and I" and his portrayal of Ramses in Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments"), controlled...

Akira Kurosawa's work has influenced cinema for generations. One of his films, Seven Samurai, inspired a wave of remakes, with John Sturges's 1960 masterpiece, The Magnificent Seven, being the first Hollywood adaptation. But while the on-screen ensemble boasted legendary talent, off-screen egos clashed, resulting in a sizzling feud between stars Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen. According to Yul Brynner: A Biography, McQueen was displeased with the seven lines his character had in the film's script and leveraged a more influential behind-the-scenes role offered by Sturges as a compromise.

At its core, John Sturges’s Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is another retelling of the exploits of Wyatt Earp (Burt Lancaster) and Doc Holliday (Kirk Douglas) where the facts are buried under layers of myth. Doc is introduced as a surly card sharp and drunk, and he’s ultimately steered out of trouble by Wyatt. This is a different approach from John Ford’s My Darling Clementine, in which Doc doesn’t appear until well into the film and is a public nuisance to Wyatt and others. By initially focusing on Doc, who’s more receptive to Wyatt’s council here, the film winds up giving the men equal footing as protagonists, making this something closer to a buddy picture.

After a prologue set in Fort Griffin, Texas, the film’s story is neatly mapped out in a two-act structure, with the characters travelling from Dodge City to Tombstone,...

The late 1950s and the entirety of the 1960s was the golden age for big, brawny, studio-produced action-adventure epics. Films like "The Bridge on the River Kwai," "The Guns of Navarone," and "The Train" plopped big movie stars in the midst of finely crafted yarns about unflappable heroes pooling their expertise to pull off seemingly impossible tasks. Most of these were next-phase World War II movies that eschewed the reverential tone of the films made in the immediate wake of the conflict's end; they were less about the Axis enemy, and more about the ingenuity of men in high-pressure situations. When done well, they were hailed by critics and ticket-buyers alike.

And with due respect to the many entertaining entries in this subgenre, none of them can match the armrest-shredding suspense and rousing camaraderie of John Sturges "The Great Escape."

Working from a screenplay credited to W.R. Burnett and the...

Western movies have produced some of the most visually stunning and iconic depictions of the Old West. Directors like Quentin Tarantino and the Coen brothers understand the importance of beautifully capturing the landscapes of the Western genre. Films like "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" and "The Searchers" are visually spectacular and continue to be influential in their representation of the Old West.

The Western genre has been responsible for some of the most visually stunning movies ever committed to the screen. Through the depiction of bandits, gunslingers, and outlaws, the Western encapsulated the beauty of the Old West and highlighted the free living and often dangerous lifestyles of those living at the heart of the American frontier. While not always an easy life to live, as cowboys faced off against terrifying outlaws, there was still something inherently beautiful about the Old West and, for that reason, audiences, time and time again,...

Non-violent War films can offer a unique perspective by focusing on individuals' experiences and challenges away from direct conflict. Some of the best war movies transcend the need for battle scenes, instead exploring drama, political intrigue, and moral dilemmas. Non-violent war films like Life is Beautiful and Oppenheimer can still be incredibly heavy and impactful.

War movies are often famous for their vivid portrayal of battlefields, realistic explosions, or the gruesome realities of combat, but war films without violence can offer a unique perspective on the genre. Some war films focus on the diverse experiences and challenges faced by individuals away from the direct conflict. Amazing films like The Great Escape can show the pervasiveness of war, demonstrating the hardships and the lives of those who may not bear arms but are nonetheless caught up in its effects, all without having to depict violence on screen.

While typical war films...

Steve McQueen is a name so cool that two famous people have to share it: the American actor and action film icon known for films like “The Great Escape” and “Bullitt” before he died in 1980, and the Oscar-winning British film director behind acclaimed dramas like “12 Years a Slave,” “Hunger,” and “Small Axe.” Now, McQueen the director has revealed that McQueen the actor was part of his formative filmgoing experiences.

In an interview with The Messenger to promote his documentary “Occupied City,” McQueen was asked about his favorite film starring the actor who shares his name. Although McQueen initially hesitated to share, he eventually revealed his favorite to be “The Magnificent Seven.” A western remake of Akira Kurosawa’s classic “Seven Samurai” from director John Sturges, the 1960 film focuses on a group of seven American gunslingers hired to protect a Mexican village from terrorizing bandits. McQueen played drifting gambler Vin in the film,...

William Shatner. Leonard Nimoy. Nichelle Nichols. These names belong to some of the most influential actors in television history, but they are almost interchangeable with the names James T. Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Uhura. For better or for worse, these names and faces are inextricably tied to the characters they played.

That said, anyone who only knows the cast of Star Trek’s original series as the command crew of the USS Enterprise is missing out on some pretty fantastic acting work elsewhere. Every member of the cast had credits before the first season in 1966, and they all went on to other projects after the show’s cancelation in 1969, even as they reconvened for the feature films. If you don’t want to sift through hours of Westerns and police procedurals, here is a cheat sheet to the best non-Trek performances from the stars of The Original Series.

William Shatner...

When it comes to Hollywood superstars, rarely does one originate from behind the camera. Oftentimes, when we think of non-actor superstars, we imagine directors like Spike Lee or Martin Scorsese, writers like Quentin Tarantino or Greta Gerwig, or composers like Hans Zimmer or Randy Newman. Out of the hundreds of crew members on set, the director of photography will barely pull a large crowd.

However, if there were one cinematographer throughout the history of Hollywood who has developed a superstar-like following, most would point to accomplished cameraman Roger Deakins.

Throughout his career, Deakins has nurtured creative partnerships with directors he has a personal affinity for, collaborating with Denis Villeneuve three times, with Sam Mendes five times, and with the Coen Brothers twelve times. He has a whopping sixteen Academy Award nominations, taking home the statue twice for his work on Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 (2017) and Mendes’ 1917 (2019).

Having worked with directors such as David Mamet,...

John Wayne turned down Dirty Harry due to not liking the idea of accepting Frank Sinatra's "rejections." He later regretted this decision. Wayne made two cop movies, McQ and Brannigan, which showed he was not a good fit for the Dirty Harry mold. Wayne disliked the increase in bad language and violence in movies, and his concerns about his screen image may have affected his decision to reject Dirty Harry.

John Wayne famously turned down Dirty Harry before Clint Eastwood took the role, which is ultimately for the best, as Wayne's two 1970s cop thrillers show he was a bad fit for the part. The waning popularity of Westerns throughout the '60s and '70s in Hollywood did little to slow down Wayne's output in the genre. He was fronting Westerns into the final years of his career and won praise for his work in 1972's The Cowboys.

Film composers easily rank among cinema's greatest unsung heroes. While many directors and movie stars eventually become household names, very few film composers receive adequate adulation from the mass audience. Film scores are integral to a movie's success, providing and enhancing the mood, tone, atmosphere, and emotion of the drama at hand.

Imagine the shark attack scenes in Jaws without John Williams' score or the shower scene in Psycho without Bernard Herrmann's score. The music is arguably the primary reason these scenes have become touchstone moments in film history. Cinema's elite film composers have impacted popular culture just as much as actors, directors, and producers.

Related: 10 Best Movies With Famous Soundtracks

Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin is a foundational figure in movie history who is beloved for his acting and directing. However, a much-overlooked facet of Chaplin's career is his brilliance as a film composer. Starting with City Lights, Chaplin...

Stage and film actor who worked with Sidney Lumet, Miloš Forman and Sergio Leone, and appeared in the TV cop drama Blue Bloods

“I always felt like the kid that sat at the foot of the gods,” said Treat Williams, who has died aged 71 following a road accident. And it is true that the first decade of his movie career was dominated by one high-calibre director after another.

John Sturges put the doughy-faced, darkly handsome actor toe-to-toe with Michael Caine in The Eagle Has Landed (1976), adapted from Jack Higgins’s novel about a plot to kidnap Winston Churchill. Miloš Forman gave Williams his first lead, as the hippie Berger in the screen version (1979) of the 1967 musical Hair. He was an ill-tempered army corporal in Steven Spielberg’s wartime comedy 1941 (also 1979). Sidney Lumet drew on his cocksure swagger and his air of moral ambiguity in Prince of the City (1981), a thriller about police corruption.

Since its birth, Hollywood has remained the most dominant film industry, but it has frequently turned to other countries for inspiration. Each year, audiences are treated to remakes of movies from European countries as well as other regions around the globe. In East Asia, Japan has often been one of the go-to sources.

Related: 10 '60s Movies That Are Ripe For A Remake

Remaking the country's best movies for American audiences is always a good idea since the majority of its motion pictures aren't normally as well-known as those from Korea. This is partly because anime tends to overshadow anything else that gets made. So far, there are close to 30 known remakes, but some are much more enjoyable.

Sensitive topics are mentioned below, including suicide.

Apartment 1303 3D (2012) Based On Ataru Oikawa's Apartment 1303

Apartment 1303 3D is both scary and heartbreaking since the victim, Lara, never catches a break.

George Maharis, a big TV star in the sixties but probably best known to JoBlo readers from his role in Albert Pyun’s The Sword and the Sorcerer, is dead at 94. According to social media posts via the actor’s caretaker, he actually passed away on Wednesday, with the cause of death not revealed. Maharis was a pretty trendy leading man in his day, with him having starred in the hip TV series Route 66, in which he co-starred with Martin Milner as two young men driving across the United States, getting involved in adventures. Taking a page from Jack Kerouac, the show made Maharis a star, but he left it prematurely due to being diagnosed with hepatitis. In 1965 he starred in a pretty good spy thriller called The Satan Bug, which came from the director of The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape, John Sturges, in which he played...

The great Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar is a rabid fan of the Western genre but until now he had never made one. He had also only dabbled in directing an English-language film with the exception of the 2020 short The Human Voice, which starred Tilda Swinton.

His latest movie is also a short, just 31 minutes, but he finally got to do his Western in English. It’s a nice homage to the form and those great directors who created it, but it is safe to say this homage could only have come from this master of cinema.

Almodóvar brought the finished product to its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday and, if flattered by the attention, the ghosts of John Ford, Howard Hawks, John Sturges, Anthony Mann, Raoul Walsh and Sam Peckinpah may be surprised at the twist that this 73-year-old fanboy has given Strange Way of Life.

Westerns are an American pastime forged in history by legendary stars such as John Wayne and Clint Eastwood as well as the masterful direction of filmmakers like John Ford, Howard Hawks and John Sturges. While roles of heroic cowboys and ruthless outlaws were the main appeal of Western films, notable actresses including Claire Trevor and Angie Dickinson, played just as vital of a role in establishing the classic genre.

Although "Heaven's Gate" is now regarded in some circles as a misunderstood masterpiece, Michael Cimino's lavish box office flop had a lot to answer for at the time. Not only was it blamed for the death of the American New Wave, but it was also seen as the final nail in the coffin of the Western. Released in 1980, the subsequent decade was an especially fallow period for the genre, but at least we got "Three Amigos."

The drought lasted almost exactly 10 years until Kevin Costner's "Dances With Wolves" became a massive box office success and went on to win seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, reinvigorating the oldest and most resilient of U.S. genres once again. Two years after Costner's triumph, Clint Eastwood's harsh but lyrical "Unforgiven" was also a big hit with audiences and won the same big prizes at the Oscars. The Western was back.

1960's The Magnificent Seven, a Western remake of famed director Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, is magnificent in name, and in nature. It's a film about decent men who are good at indecent deeds, who come to the aid of a peaceful farming village facing an oppressive gang of bandits because it's the decent thing to do. It's lighthearted when it can be, and gripping when it should be. Director John Sturges crafts a classic Western that doesn't adhere to all the genre's rules, while also honoring Kurosawa's work.

The French Alps in VistaVision and Technicolor really sell this inspirational thriller. Spencer Tracy stars is the utterly ethical mountaineer, and young Robert Wagner his venal, verminous, just plain no damn good younger brother. Make that Much younger. Edward Dmytryk directs for big dimensions and strong emotions, and Paramount’s remaster makes the special effects of the mountain climb look good again. It’s a morality tale pitched at grade school level, and one of Tracy’s better late-career pictures. With Anna Kashfi as a plane crash victim deserving of rescue, and William Demarest as a French priest with a Preston Sturges accent.

The Mountain

Region Free Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] #198

1956 / Color / 1:78 widescreen (VistaVision) / 105 min. / Street Date February 22, 2023 / Available from [Imprint] / Aud 34.98

Starring: Spencer Tracy, Robert Wagner, Claire Trevor, William Demarest, Barbara Darrow, Richard Arlen, E.G. Marshall, Anna Kashfi, Richard Garrick, Harry Townes.

Cinematography: Franz Planer

Costume Designer: Edith Head

Art Director: Hal Pereira,...

When it comes to prisoner of war stories, few are as remarkable as "The Great Escape." During World War II, the inmates of Stalag Luft III in modern-day Poland embarked on a grand plan to dig not just one but three tunnels out of the camp. The goal was to bust out over 200 men and cause disruption to the Nazi war effort by tying up as many resources as possible trying to recapture them. It was no easy task, however, as the camp was specially designed to be escape-proof: the huts were raised above the ground to deter digging and built on sandy earth to make any efforts to disperse hundred tons of soil excavated from the tunnels obvious to the guards.

Nevertheless, the team, overseen by "Big X" Roger Bushell and his escape committee, largely made up of British servicemen and others from around the Commonwealth, displayed remarkable ingenuity...

A&m/UMe celebrates the 30th-anniversary of Sting’s fourth solo album, Ten Summoner’s Tales, with a digital-only Expanded Edition released today. Originally released on March 1, 1993, the album title is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek mashup of the artist’s given surname, Sumner, and a character in Geoffrey Chaucer’s 15th-century literary classic The Canterbury Tales, the summoner.

The 27-track Expanded Edition features the original 12-song Ten Summoner’s Tales album plus 15 bonus tracks consisting of B-sides, remixes, alternate versions, and live performances (complete track listing included below). Eleven of these 15 bonus tracks were previously unavailable for digital download or streaming. Mixed by 4-time Grammy Award winning Robert “Hitmixer” Orton, the album is also available in Dolby Atmos. Listen to or purchase Sting’s Ten Summoner’s Tales – Expanded Edition Here.

Pivoting from the deeply personal sense of loss that permeated Sting’s platinum solo album The Soul Cages, Ten Summoner...

Walter Mirisch, former president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Oscar-winning producer for In the Heat of the Night, died Friday in Los Angeles of natural causes. was 101. He had been the longest-living Oscar winner.

Mirisch — whose producing credits stretch to the 1940s and also include West Side Story, The Apartment and the 1960 and 2016 versions of The Magnificent Seven — also won a pair of Honorary Oscars: Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1978 and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1983. He also received the Producer Guild of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Motion Pictures in 1996.

Related Story Happy Birthday, Walter Mirisch: Oldest Living Oscar Winner Turns 100; His Films Include ‘West Side Story’, ‘The Apartment’ & ‘In The Heat Of The Night’ Related Story Oscars: Sofia Carson & Diane Warren To Perform 'Applause' During Ceremony Related Story Tom Whitlock Dies: Oscar-Winning Co-Writer Of 'Top Gun' Hits 'Take...

In his autobiography, "The Ragman's Son," "Spartacus" star and cinema luminary Kirk Douglas makes much of his longtime friendship with the hulking legendary actor Burt Lancaster. The two first worked together on Lisabeth Scott's 1947 noir classic "I Walk Alone," which sees Lancaster's convict battle his former bootlegging, currently two-timing business partner (Douglas).

Their second big-screen pairing was in "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral," a John Sturges Western chronicling the storied 1881 Tombstone, Arizona shootout. Therein, Douglas would play the ailing gunslinger Doc Holliday to Lancaster's tenacious Wyatt Earp, two tough men whose tense alliance would blossom into diehard loyalty. Though the duo would go on to star in a handful of movies together it was on the set of the 1957 American Western where the two actors really hit it off.

"The Ragman's Son" carries the details of production, a shoot largely oscillating between the historically-relevant location of Tucson, Arizona, and Paramount Studio sets back in California.

Quentin Tarantino crowned Sergio Corbucci as the second-best director of Italian westerns, but our vote goes to Sergio Sollima — this is the most satisfying Spaghetti oater outside of the Leone corral. In his first starring role, Lee Van Cleef is lawman Jonathan Corbett, who pursues Tomas Milian’s killer into Mexico for an American millionaire. Political screenwriter Franco Solinas helped cook up the story, which pitches frontier ethics against ‘establishment’ corruption. The two-disc special edition presents the show in 4 versions, if we count a clever English-Italian language hybrid.

The Big Gundown

Region B Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1967 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 110, 90, 95 min. / La resa dei conti / Street Date February 13, 2023 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £22.99

Starring: Lee Van Cleef, Tomas Milian, Walter Barnes, Nieves Navarro, Gérard Herter, Manolita Barroso, Robert Camardiel, Ángel del Pozo, Luisa Rivelli, Luis Barboo, Benito Stefanelli.

Cinematography: Carlo Carlini

Set decorators: Carlo Leva, Carlo Simi, Nicola Tamburo

Costumes: Carlo...

Take a look at where you can watch Akira Kurosawa’s classic, Seven Samurai, and what streaming platform to find it on.

As Japanese Samurai movies go, Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai is an absolute classic. Originally released in 1954, the movie is set in 1584 Japan during a period of almost constant civil war in Japan named the Sengoku period. When the movie was released, it was a watershed moment in Japanese cinema, it quickly became the highest-grossing Japanese film of all time and inspired countless recreations in some form or another, perhaps the most famous inspiration was The Magnificent Seven, where director John Sturges adapted Seven Samurai and dressed it up as a Western, with gun-slinging cowboys and Native Americans. Seven Samurai remains an all-time classic and if it is still on your one-to-watch list, now is the chance. Read on to find out more about Seven Samurai, and watch...

The recent passing of David Crosby was an enormous blow to the world of music. As a member of the Byrds, and one of Cosby, Stills & Nash, David Crosby helped revolutionize the folk-friendly arm of the entire 1960s rock scene. Compared to the kid-friendly bubblegum pop of the era, Crosby's work was more touching, emotional, and intelligent. He will be missed. 

Also, Crosby grew up with an Oscar in his house. As it happens, David Crosby's father was none other than the Academy Award-winning cinematographer Floyd Crosby.

Floyd Crosby is not necessarily a household name, but his career as a cinematographer spanned over 30 years. Indeed, Floyd's career got an enormous kickstart in 1931 when he filmed F.W. Murnau's silent semi-documentary "Tabu: A Story of the South Seas." That film aimed to tell the authentic story of life on the island of Bora Bora, and, for the most part, cast only...