The Top 10 Westerns Ever Made, Plus 10 More Deep Cuts

[mystery-ak]

 The Top 10 Westerns Ever Made, Plus 10 More Deep Cuts

With their clear-eyed moral messaging, Westerns are a great antidote to much of the modern filmmaking landscape, where audiences are often asked to identify with the bad guy.

Inez Feltscher Stepman
By Inez Feltscher Stepman   
March 23, 2018

No film genre is more quintessential to the American soul than the Western. The virtues Westerns champion—courage, moral clarity, self-reliance, individualism—are American virtues; their vices—excessive or hokey moral simplicity, caricatures of the enemy—are American too. Westerns are so synonymous with the legend that is America that it’s little wonder that from their heyday in the 1950s until today, they’ve played a key role in shaping our perception of ourselves, as well as the world’s opinion of us.

The white-hatted cowboy standing firm against long odds is iconic, and not only within our borders. Western imagery has had such a powerful impact across the globe that Gary Cooper’s character in “High Noon” (No. 3) was used by the anti-Communist Polish party Solidarity in a poster campaign urging people to overcome their fear of tyrannical system and show their true colors at the polls.

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http://thefederalist.com/2018/03/23/top-10-westerns-ever-made-plus-10-deep-cuts/

[catfish1957]

Unforgiven isn't even in her top 20?

Credibility = 0

[Free Vulcan]

The Outlaw Josey Wales made honorable mention? No High Plains Drifter?

[goatprairie]

One very underrated western is "Last Train From Gun Hill" starring Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn.  Douglas plays a town marshal whose Indian wife is murdered by Quinn's son played by Earl Holliman. Douglas has to try to bring the son to justice against the determined efforts of big cattle-rancher Quinn who runs things in his local town.

[WingNot]

The Outlaw Josey Wales made honorable mention? No High Plains Drifter?

Seriously High Plains Drifter Kicked butt.  Hell, even two mules for sister sara was better than TOJW.

The list is some poppinjays whimsical ramblings.

[goatprairie]

There's a number of other westerns that are high on the list of best westerns ever made. "Ride The High Country" "The Big Country"  "Missouri Breaks" "The Long Riders" "Major Dundee" "Rawhide" are among them. There's more, but I can't remember them at the moment.
"The Ballad Of Cable Hogue" starring Jason Robards is another Sam Peckinpaugh western that's up there.
But the biggest sin is leaving Marlon Brando's "One-Eyed Jacks" off the list. Might be my all time favorite western. Got downgraded when it came out because so many people in power, especially film critics, hated Brando who told most of them to go eff themselves when they wanted him to beg for approval.

[TomSea]

They had more than one John Wayne movie, maybe even 3.... Eastwood's movies are excellent, I would understand if they didn't want to overplay one actor and say, took one from Eastwood, John Wayne, etc.

Hard list to put together so it will be a bit subjective. I agree, Missouri Breaks is quite excellent.