Western movies are a part of American history and they are still one of the most popular genres in Hollywood. Western is a genre of fiction set primarily in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the Western United States. Much of the movies story commonly on the life of a nomadic cowboy or gunfighter that rides a horse and is armed with a revolve and/or a rifle. Often the cowboys and gunslingers wear broad-brimmed and high-crowned Stetson hats, neckerchief bandannas, vests, spurs, cowboy boots, and buckskins. Basically, if you like good old Americana or guns, you’ll like Westerns and here are the ones you should watch.
Unforgiven (1992)
Unforgiven is a 1992 American Western film produced and directed by Clint Eastwood who is featured in the lead role. The film is about William Munny, an aging outlaw and killer who takes on one more job, years after he had turned to farming. The film also stars Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, and Richard Harris. Eastwood stated that the film would be his last Western for fear of repeating himself or imitating someone else’s work. Unforgiven grossed over $159 million on a budget of $14.4 million and received widespread critical acclaim. The film won four Academy Awards: Best Picture and Best Director for Clint Eastwood, Best Supporting Actor for Gene Hackman, and Best Film Editing for editor Joel Cox.
No Country For Old Men (2007)
No Country for Old Men is a 2007 American neo-Western crime thriller film based on Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 novel of the same name. It stars Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin, with the film is set in the desert landscape of 1980 West Texas. No Country for Old Men revisits the themes of fate, conscience, and circumstance that the Coen brothers had explored in the films Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), and Fargo (1996). The film follows three main characters: Llewelyn Moss (Brolin), a Vietnam War veteran and welder who stumbles upon a large sum of money in the desert; Anton Chigurh (Bardem), a mysterious hitman who is tasked with recovering the money; and Ed Tom Bell (Jones), a local sheriff investigating the crime. The film also stars Kelly Macdonald as Moss’s wife Carla Jean, and Woody Harrelson as a bounty hunter seeking Moss and the return of the $2 million.
Tombstone (1993)
Tombstone is a 1993 American Western film starring Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer, with Sam Elliott, Bill Paxton, Powers Boothe, Michael Biehn, and Dana Delany in supporting roles, as well as narration by Robert Mitchum. The film is loosely based on events in Tombstone, Arizona, including the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and the Earp Vendetta Ride, during the 1880s. It depicts a number of Western outlaws and lawmen, such as Wyatt Earp, William Brocius, Johnny Ringo, and Doc Holliday.
Django Unchained (2012)
Django Unchained is a 2012 American Western film starring Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, and Samuel L. Jackson, with Walton Goggins, Dennis Christopher, James Remar, Michael Parks, and Don Johnson in supporting roles. Set in the Old West and Antebellum South, it’s plot is about a bounty-hunter named King Schultz seeks out a slave named Django and buys him because he needs him to find some men he is looking for. After finding them, Django wants to find his wife, Broomhilda, who along with him were sold separately by his former owner for trying to escape. Schultz offers to help him if he chooses to stay with him and be his partner. Eventually they learn that she was sold to a plantation in Mississippi. Knowing they can’t just go in and say they want her, they come up with a plan so that the owner will welcome them into his home and they can find a way.
3:10 To Yuma (2007)
3:10 to Yuma is a 2007 American western action drama film starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale in the lead roles, with supporting performances by Peter Fonda, Gretchen Mol, Ben Foster, Dallas Roberts, Alan Tudyk, Vinessa Shaw, and Logan Lerman. It is about a drought-impoverished rancher (Bale) who takes on the dangerous job of taking a notorious outlaw (Crowe) to justice. It is a remake of the 1957 film of the same name, making it the second adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s 1953 short story “Three-Ten to Yuma”.
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