Return to Article

Recommend Still 'Search'ing for an Accurate List of the Greatest Westerns (Email)

This action will generate an email recommending this article to the recipient of your choice. Note that your email address and your recipient's email address are not logged by this system.

Email Article Link

The email sent will contain a link to this article, the article title, and an article excerpt (if available). For security reasons, your IP address will also be included in the sent email.

Article Excerpt:

I am almost in complete agreement with Anne Thompson, the Deputy Editor of Variety.com, who railed a recent list put together by the Western Writers of America. Her headline: "Westerns Top 100 List Sucks: Shane Number One"

That about says it all. Shane is by no means the best Western ever made. But this list has a much more populist bent than a truly artistic one and that's fine, unless you're trying to be accurate. See, the problem is, you just can't defend Shane as the best Western of all time.

It borders on the illogical to not have The Searchers as the number one Western, because in addition to being an exceedingly well-made film, it for the first time blurred the line between right and wrong, meaning most of the good Westerns that preceded it had failed to account for the moral ambiguity of living life by the gun and had failed to account for revenge, which is one of the most common thematic devices in a Western.

In other words, The Searchers said, "this is how Westerns will be made now." And if you look at the films that followed it for 35 years, that's exactly what happened. Then Clint Eastwood made Unforgiven, bled all the revenge right out of William Munny and said, "that's just about enough of that."

The Searchers did make their list, at number three, but when your top ten has two John Wayne movies and two Kevin Costner movies and when Costner has more films on the list as a director than John Ford, you need to re-evaluate. Seriously, Open Range over Unforgiven, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, Stagecoach, The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, True Grit, Rio Bravo, and Blazing Saddles? I mean, it's a great gunfight there at the end, but that's about it.

So the Western Writers of America have failed us. You may be asking yourself, who are these masked men? Well, they're all reputable writers, some have written novels, others screenplays. And now you might be asking yourself, then wouldn't they know more about Westerns than you?

You'd think so, and thanks for pointing that out. But let's examine their list of Westerns that made the Top 10:

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

See what I mean? I like Tombstone a lot, think it's a much more entertaining film than Dances With Wolves, but neither one of them belong in the top ten. Do you know how many Westerns there have been? And how many very good ones, for that matter? Most of the glaring omissions are in the 11 - 20 range, with the exception of Rio Bravo, which is a bit lower.

Article Link:

Your Name:

Your Email:

Recipient Email:

Message: