What is Your Favorite Western?

[Rich Riddle]

I am going through a Western phase. I like the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and a few more. What is your favorite Western?

[Mac McQuinn]

"The Searchers" w/ John Wayne, Ward Bond, Etc. & Stagecoach with John Wayne.
As an afterthought, I've never seen a western with Joel McCrea I didn't like.

Mac

[Stan Calow]

Once upon a Time in the West is a pretty grim (and long) spaghetti western, in the vein of Good, Bad, Ugly. with Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda, and some recognizable others. A more traditional one is The Big Country with Gregory Peck, Charlton Heston & Chuck Connors.

[Mark Carlson]

More John Wayne movies I liked. Hondo. Angel and the Bad Man. Oh and Blazing Saddles.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The Magnificent Seven. If you want to hear Clint Eastwood sing, Paint Your Wagon Red.

[Pat Barry]

Oklahoma !

[Brett Luna]

That's a really touch call. I'm a fan of Jimmy Stewart so Winchester '73, The Rare Breed, and The Cheyenne Social Club are favorites. For John Wayne I like McLintock!, The Shootist, and too many more. For more recent westerns, I like Silverado, Quigley Down Under, and Open Range.

[Paul McGaha]

I like a lot of the John Wayne and Clint Eastwood westerns.

I suppose my favorite would be John Wayne's Big Jake.

PHM

[Robert Engel]

Outlaw Josey Wales.

I'm a late Baby Boomer.

[Ole Anderson]

I am enjoying a modern western, Longmire, into its 5th year, now available on Netflix. Instead of a horse, the sheriff runs around in an old Ford Bronco, he even has an Indian sidekick, played by Lou Diamond Phillips..

[Mel Fulks]

Original "High Noon". " The Searchers" is a good serious theme story. Some years back I heard some critics discussing it and realized that I did not really "get it". I'm of the opinion now that they didn't want us to get it....or they would not have cast John Wayne. I think he was good in it but his good guy image was certainly used to weaken the message. That story done today would be a lot bleaker.

[jack duren]

I'm a John Wayne fan, but those days are gone. Took a liking to Lonesome Dove and Open Range. I really like Robert Duvall in westerns. Tommy Lee Johns ain't bad either...

[Dave Lehnert]

I can sit and watch Bonanza all afternoon.

[Tom Stenzel]

I'm with Stan- my favorite western is Once Upon a Time in the West. Bronson was perfect and Henry Fonda as a ice-cold killer, wow. And Claudia Cardinale would have been a great silent actress. Nice to look at too.

I also have the Clint spaghetti westerns, The Magnificent Seven on DVD and watch them once in awhile. On TV my favorite western was Have Gun Will Travel.

Just waiting for some malcontent here to vote for Blazing Saddles. Yeah, I have that too on VHS. Great movie but I'm not sure if it's a western.

Any votes for Johnny Guitar?:eek:

-Tom

[James Baker SD]

for classic western, Shane--Jack Palance was such a perfect evil face for the part. for silly westerns "My Name is Nobody"--Henry Fonda and Terrance Hill

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Too many to name just one. So....A Man called Horse, Dances with Wolves, The Last of the Dogmen.

[Jason Ost]

Sons of Katie Elder.

[Jebediah Eckert]

Outlaw Jody Wales

-"but I'll be needin' it for squirrels and such"

[Mark Blatter]

That's a really touch call. I'm a fan of Jimmy Stewart so Winchester '73, The Rare Breed, and The Cheyenne Social Club are favorites. For John Wayne I like McLintock!, The Shootist, and too many more. For more recent westerns, I like Silverado, Quigley Down Under, and Open Range.


+1 on Jimmy Stewart. Winchester '73 is one of my favorites. I am not sure however, that Quigley is a western, but I do enjoy the movie.

Others I enjoy are Big Jake, Sons of Katie Elder, El Dorado, The War Wagon, and The Shootist is one of my top ones to watch. Something about all of those in common though not sure what. Many of these have been mentioned though.

The ones based on Louis L'amour are reasonably good. Typically they have the two most natural born western actors ever in them, Tom Selleck and Sam Elliot. Those two guys were just born to be in westerns. Another couple that weren't mentioned yet are Jeremiah Johnson and a somewhat obscure one called Big Hand for the Little Lady. That is one you really need to watch if you haven't seen it.

[Bruce Page]

Cat Ballou was always a favorite of mine.

[Jim Koepke]

Along with many of those already named one that wasn't mentioned is High Plains Drifter. Can't figure out why, but that movie just seem to suck me in.

jtk

[Frederick Skelly]

Sons of Katie Elder.

+1 That's the one I was thinking of!

[Shawn Pixley]

My vote:

Best Western - Unforgiven
favorite - Siverado

ones I'd watch over and over - The Good, the bad, and the Ugly, Quigley Down Under, Pale Rider, The Shootist, and The magnificent Seven (original version)

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

All of the above, as well as the western filmed in Australia - Man From Snowy River.

You also can't forget all the great Ennio Morricone soundtracks that go with the movies. No matter how many times I hear this, I cannot listen to this snippet without my adrenaline prepping for something bad to happen!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL-X53ze5O0

... Forgot to add Deadwood. I finally watched that on Netflix. I had read rave reviews about it for years and finally got around to it. I almost quit due to the sheer volume of cussing on it, but I decided to give it a try due to all the rave reviews. It doesn't take long to ignore the cussing and get into the plot. A lot of great characters in that series - especially Ian McShane and Gerald McRaney. My theory is while they probably didn't use those words in the real time period, the words they did use in that era are quite tame for us now. The show needed to crank up the language to achieve the same effect.

[Mike Cutler]

The Original True Grit with John Wayne and Glen Campbell.
Silverado
Sukiyaki Western Django

Then of course High Plains Drifter.

[John A langley]

High noon, 3:10 to Yuma,pony soldiers

[Kev Williams]

A local channel plays 'Wanted Dead or Alive" every morning. I get a kick out of McQueen as a cowboy ;)
(I much prefer him shooting pool or chasing Charger's with Mustang's, but that's another topic)

As for Westerns in general... if it's got Eastwood in it, I'll watch it :)

[Jerome Stanek]

I always liked Support your local sheriff

[Rod Sheridan]

Most of the movies already listed as well as Heavens Gate..........Rod.

[Larry Frank]

My favorite is....Quigley Down Under

[Chuck Pickering]

I'll watch anything with John Wayne, although I've seen(many, many times), and have, most all of his films. I can almost recite most of the dialog of the Duke's films. Have a portrait of The Duke hanging in my Den. Also like most of those mentioned already. Guess you could say I like any westerns over the crap that poses for today's movies.

Chuck

[John Grider]

Red River with John Wayne. Mountain Man With Charleton Heston and Brian Kieth. All 20 + hours of the TV mini series Centennial.

[Ralph Okonieski]

Rio Bravo and El Dorado.

[Cary Falk]

Pale rider
Unforgiven
The hateful 8
3:10 to Yuma
Young Guns

[Jesse Busenitz]

Silverado and Quigley Down Under. The Apple Dumpling Gang and Hot Lead And Cold Feet are good for a laugh or two.... Don Knotts/Tim Conway were two peas in a pod.

[Jim Tobias]

Clint Eastwood, especially Unforgiven.
Tombstone
Deadwood is classic.

[Mike Henderson]

Seven Samurai - the original of the Magnificent Seven.

Mike

[Bert Kemp]

Quigley Down Under, Tombstone

[Mike Dodson]

I think my all time favorite would be "Water Hole #3"

[Greg Peterson]

True Grit - w/Jeff Bridges
3:10 to Yuma
High Noon
Pale Rider
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

[Bill Jobe]

The Wild Wild West.

Support Your Local Sheriff. (Because I like just about everything James Garner has done.)

Support Your Local Gunfighter. (Same deal)

Cat Ballou. ( Lee Marvin was hilarious in that film.)

Have gun-will travel

[Malcolm McLeod]

Lots of good ones, but no one mentioned "The Cowboys"?

I have sons. ...maybe it's a 'father-of-sons-thing'?

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I am enjoying a modern western, Longmire, into its 5th year, now available on Netflix. Instead of a horse, the sheriff runs around in an old Ford Bronco, he even has an Indian sidekick, played by Lou Diamond Phillips..


Longmire! Good show!

It's on for 1 more season and then it's supposed to end.


Another good Jimmy Stewart movie is "Bend of the River".

[Bill Jobe]

for classic western, Shane--Jack Palance was such a perfect evil face for the part. for silly westerns "My Name is Nobody"--Henry Fonda and Terrance Hill

Alan Ladd was just slightly over 5'6" tall, so he stood on something in many scenes.

[Bill Jobe]

All of the above, as well as the western filmed in Australia - Man From Snowy River.

+1 on Snowy River. I've probably watched it 10 times. The fight scene in the bunk house and the dialog emediatly after was great, as was the heartbreaking scene of killing the old dog and Ray Walston's emotional response.

Return to Snowy River.....not so much.

[Bill Jobe]

+1 on Jimmy Stewart. .

Another thumbs up on Jimmy Stewart. I'll watch anything he's in.
The most recent I've seen was The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

[Rich Riddle]

I love Jimmy Stewart as well; he was quite the man. Didn't someone named "Harvey" star in several westerns with Jimmy Stewart? It seem modern westerns are attempting to rewrite or re-brush history with countless women written in as gunfighters and the rough and tumble types.

[Mel Fulks]

I love Jimmy Stewart as well; he was quite the man. Didn't someone named "Harvey" star in several westerns with Jimmy Stewart? It seem modern westerns are attempting to rewrite or re-brush history with countless women written in as gunfighters and the rough and tumble types.
Agree. But I've noticed that the actress gun fighters are much more attractive the old photos of real prostitutes...jes don't seem right sum how ....

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

+1 on Snowy River. I've probably watched it 10 times. The fight scene in the bunk house and the dialog emediatly after was great, as was the heartbreaking scene of killing the old dog and Ray Walston's emotional response.

Return to Snowy River.....not so much.

Return to Snowy River wasn't as good, but I still enjoyed that one too. While I like Brian Dennehy in the 2nd, Kirk Douglas left a impact for me in the first. I thought the soundtrack was amazing in both of them.

No one has mentioned the more modern Westerns - with a twist. .... I loved the Firefly TV series, and I enjoyed Cowboys and Aliens too.


What is sad is all these amazing westerns are out there, yet there are so few of them available on Instant Viewing on Netflix or Amazon Prime. I have had many of these westerns in my queue for years waiting for them to become available. (My "boring old movies" get bumped to the bottom of the DVD queue in favor of new releases for our movie night.)

[David Edinger]

Rio Bravo w John Wayne, Ricky Nelson, Dean Martin, and my favorite in the movie Walter Brennan!

[Van Huskey]

Leone's man with no name trilogy is by far my favorites with The Good... at #1. Both Magnificent Sevens but Kurosawa did it even better. Butch and Sundance, mainly since I like Newman and love the comedy in the movie. High Noon is also great. Once Upon A Time In The West may be Leone's best.

Of the modern ones 3:10 to Yuma, Tombstone, the above mentioned second Mag Seven, Unforgiven and I also really like the Quick and the Dead.

Never have been a fan of John Wayne, I basically can't watch his movies.

[Van Huskey]

It seem modern westerns are attempting to rewrite or re-brush history with countless women written in as gunfighters and the rough and tumble types.

My biggest gripe is the wh, umm working women have no existent pores and are have modern leading lady looks, but I guess so do the men, they just tend to have a layer of grime and hair on them. I don't mind the women at all (see the above Sharon Stone film as an example) and most of the Westerns (especially the old Westerns are far from accurate and just like all action movies gunplay is mostly stylized and mainly overt fantasy. While I don't mind this for whatever reason it bugs me that 99% of movies portray hand grenades as completely different than they are in real life, and most high velocity explosive based explosions as well.

[Malcolm McLeod]

....
While I don't mind this for whatever reason it bugs me that 99% of movies portray hand grenades as completely different than they are in real life, and most high velocity explosive based explosions as well.

I saw a stand-up comic, who was a Vietnam vet, do a routine about Rambo movies, specifically Rambo running across the rice paddies with mortar rounds dropping 6-8 feet from him. The comic did a great imitation of a Marine D.I. lecturing recruits about 40mm mortars - -

"it has a n-teenth pound HIGH explosive WARHEAD, wrapped by eleventy-seven feet of SEGMENTED x-gauge wire! .... on detonation EXPLODES outward at xxx feet per second, YIELDING an effective kill radius of One HUNDRED and EIGHTY six FEET! Lethal to anything except .. RAMBO!!"

Joke is not as timely anymore, so certainly not as funny, but it illustrates Hollywood's love of a pint of diesel strapped to an M80 as a substitute for your hi-velocity ordinance. After all, even Jack Reacher frowns on getting killed during filming. If so, it just ruins the opportunity for residuals and sequels.

[John Kleiber]

Yep, definitely thumbs up for Tombstone

[Marty Gulseth]

Dances With Wolves is one of my all-genre all-time favorites. Like many of the others here I occasionally go track down one of the John Wayne offerings, one of the "spaghetti westerns", or others. A necessarily occasional indulgence for my completely mindless moments is "The Hallelujah Trail" - I originally watched that one at a drive-in theater during college days, and yes, there were smuggled in "adult beverages" involved!

[Bill McNiel]

All time fav = Open Range

Others= Quigley Down Under and Million Ways to Die in the Old West

[Bob Grier]

I like Westerns! And, I liked most all that have mentioned including the current Longmire series.

One of my favorites was Lonesome Dove and will never forget what Gus said to his friend Lori. “Lori Darlin you’re as sweet as the mornin….how bout a poke?” It just took me by surprise. There were many more memorable quotes but to me, this one has stuck.

[Sam Murdoch]

A Man Called Horse with Richard Harris (definitely NOT a Return of the Man Called Horse). Like the bad sequel Return to Snowy River, the sequels were pretty terrible in comparison to the original films. Jeremiah Johnson was a excellent too. Kind of on a theme here. :) There have been some great ones (many listed above) but not to many John Wayne movies had much going for them IMHO - though I did enjoy True Grit.

[Harold Wright]

I like John Wayne in True Grit when he tells Ned Pepper to "Fill yore hand, you SOB". Also the Cowboys after John Wayne is killed and the kids ambush Bruce Dern and his horse falls on him & he begs them to help him get loose and they walk away.

[Caspar Hauser]

I quite like 'Dead Man'.

[Bill Jobe]

I quite like 'Dead Man'.

I don't recall that one.

One I don't think has been mentioned
...Sundance. I remember the guy's face but can"t put a name on it. Wore a black hat with mirrors all the way around it.
It was a series, not movie.

[Brent Ring]

Favorites - Can't pick just one. Love The Cowboys, and The Shootist, the Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Man from Snowy River. One thats not a complete western in the traditional sense, but has Yul Brynner as the bad cowboy robot, was the movie - Westworld. I liked his quiet, bad guy demeanor. :)

[Caspar Hauser]

I don't recall that one

1995, Robert Mitchum's last film. Not one for the grandkids.

[Chris Padilla]

Seven Samurai - the original of the Magnificent Seven.

Mike

My wife and I loved everything Akira Kurosawa ever made and this was his best. I've heard that George Lucas was inspired by this in the making of Star Wars.

But like most, anything with Clint Eastwood or John Wayne usually works fine. Jimmie Stewart is always wonderful. Lee Marvin is another good guy.

[Bill Jobe]

Cat Ballou was always a favorite of mine.


I love that movie. The scene when Lee Marvin is drunk, sitting on his horse and leaning against the barn was really funny. Someone commented about his eyes looking so bad and he replied "You otta see 'em from my side.

[Bill Jobe]

1995, Robert Mitchum's last film. Not one for the grandkids.

No, and they should never have done a remake. Mitchum was believable in that movie. The remake was a high tech dud. Totally unbelievable.
Mitchum was perfectly cast. I did not know it was his last movie.

[Tom Stenzel]

After 65 posts nobody has mentioned Randolph Scott. His movies didn't make my favorites but I was sure Ride the High Country would have been mentioned by someone.

-Tom