7 Best Old-School Western Movies, Ranked

Old-school Westerns continuously populate lists of the best movies in the genre, having produced some of the most iconic landscapes, characters, and filmmaking styles in cinema. While many good Westerns include dusty frontiers, legendary gunslingers, sprawling environments, and epic shootouts, the best in the genre often offer more than showdowns and horseback chases. Underneath the cowboy hats and six-shooters are compelling stories about revenge, loyalty, and justice.

Directors like Sergio Leone and John Ford helped transform the genre with their classic films, while Clint Eastwood delivered one of its most powerful examinations of violence and its consequences. From traditional Hollywood mainstays to stylish Spaghetti Westerns and darker revisionist stories, these are the seven best films the genre has to offer.

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7

The Wild Bunch

1969

Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch was like nothing audiences had ever seen when it was released in 1969. Following an aging gang of outlaws led by Pike Bishop, The Wild Bunch is set in 1913, when the Old West was rapidly disappearing and men like Pike were becoming relics of a bygone era. After a disastrous robbery, the gang heads to Mexico for a deal involving stolen weapons and a ruthless general, which tests how much their loyalty to each other is worth. There’s little romance to their lifestyle, and Peckinpah makes no attempt to glamorize the world they inhabit.

The Wild Bunch is still astonishing even five decades later, particularly during its opening robbery and the infamous final confrontation. Peckinpah’s use of rapid editing and slow motion completely changed how action was presented on screen, though The Wild Bunch has a lot more going for it than just a collection of spectacular gunfights. It’s populated by characters who are thieves and killers, who nevertheless cling to a code of honor, even when they repeatedly fail to live up to it. The Wild Bunch ranks seventh because its relentlessly bleak approach won’t appeal to everyone, but there’s no denying just how influential and uncompromising it is.

6

Tombstone

1993

Plenty of other Westerns are more historically accurate than Tombstone, but not many are as entertaining. Kurt Russell stars as Wyatt Earp, a former lawman hoping to enjoy a quieter life in the Arizona boomtown of Tombstone. However, his plans fall apart when outlaw cowboys begin threatening the town, drawing Wyatt and his brothers into an escalating conflict that culminates in the iconic gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Tombstone takes considerable liberties with history, but its blend of sharp dialogue, memorable characters, and old-fashioned Western spectacle makes it a thoroughly enjoyable watch.

Of course, there’s no discussing Tombstone without mentioning Val Kilmer’s Doc Holliday. Kilmer’s portrayal is so good that he frequently steals scenes from the star-studded cast, which includes Russell, Sam Elliott, Bill Paxton, and Powers Boothe. Kilmer gives Holliday a wonderfully dry sense of humor, but never lets the audience forget that he’s a seriously ill man whose time is running out.

His friendship with Wyatt provides much of Tombstone’s emotional weight, and his confrontations with Johnny Ringo give the film some of its most memorable moments. Tombstone doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel as a Western, but it understands exactly what makes the genre so entertaining, and executes those familiar ingredients exceptionally well.

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5

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

1969

The titular characters in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are not your typical outlaws. They’re not exactly dangerous or intimidating, because Paul Newman and Robert Redford instead make them feel like two men you’d happily spend an afternoon with. Newman plays the quick-witted Butch, whose complicated schemes don’t always work out, while Redford’s Sundance is a quieter, deadlier gunslinger who regularly finds himself questioning his partner’s decisions. Their impressive chemistry turns a film about two criminals fleeing the law into a thrilling, fun buddy movie.

George Roy Hill also gives Butch Cassidy a playful personality; the bicycle sequence accompanied by “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” doesn’t sound like a great Western scene, but it fits perfectly. Beneath the movie’s humor, however, is the understanding that Butch and Sundance are part of a disappearing world; their flight to Bolivia promises a fresh start, but there’s no way they can escape the consequences of their chosen lives forever. The famous final freeze-frame is a brilliant way to conclude the story, preserving the pair’s legendary image without pretending that their adventures could continue on forever.

4

High Noon

1952

In High Noon, just as Marshal Will Kane is about to leave town with his new wife, he learns that a criminal he helped put in prison is returning on the noon train to seek revenge. Obviously, Kane could just leave, and pretty much everyone encourages him to do just that. But instead, he stays and attempts to gather support from the townspeople he’s spent years protecting. Sadly for Kane, though, very few people are willing to stand by him when it really matters.

Fred Zinnemann’s decision to tell High Noon’s story in almost real time is genius. The repeated shots of the clock create an almost unbearable tension, and Kane’s desperate attempts to recruit support gradually reveal the cowardice and self-interest hiding behind the seemingly respectable townsfolk. And Gary Cooper’s restrained performance helps sell that tense story perfectly; Kane’s frightened, exhausted, and perfectly aware that he may not survive. In that respect, High Noon is an incredible Western because it can find more tension in one man’s isolation than many others in the genre can find with an army of outlaws.

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3

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

1966

Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is effortlessly cool, even to this day. Clint Eastwood’s mysterious Blondie, Lee Van Cleef’s ruthless Angel Eyes, and Eli Wallach’s unpredictable Tuco are all searching for fortune in Confederate gold during the American Civil War. Their shifting alliances, betrayals, and consistent attempts to outwit one another help make a nearly three-hour treasure hunt consistently entertaining.

Each cast member gives a standout performance in the Spaghetti Western, but Wallach has to get his flowers for his portrayal. He makes Tuco greedy, ridiculous, resourceful, and occasionally sympathetic, sometimes all in one scene. Leone’s direction is also its own star. His extreme close-ups, enormous landscapes, and willingness to let a confrontation unfold without dialogue created a distinct style that numerous filmmakers have tried to imitate. With a climactic three-way showdown at Sad Hill Cemetery, a sequence that stretches a simple standoff into incredible suspense, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is nothing short of a masterpiece in the Western genre.

2

Once Upon a Time in The West

1968

If The Good, the Bad and the Ugly perfected Sergio Leone’s distinct Western style, then Once Upon a Time in the West took it somewhere even more ambitious. The 1968 movie opens with three gunmen waiting at a remote train station, where the quietest of sounds become almost deafening in the absence of dialogue. Their eventual confrontation with Charles Bronson’s Harmonica is one of the many signs of Once Upon a Time in the West’s slow, deliberate approach to suspense. From there, Leone develops a sprawling story involving a ruthless hired killer, a railroad expansion, and a widow whose land is now very, very valuable.

Casting Henry Fonda as the villainous Frank was a masterstroke. Audiences accustomed to seeing Fonda play decent, principled men were confronted with a cold-blooded murderer, and his early appearance is one of the movie’s most shocking moments. Claudia Cardinale is equally impressive as Jill McBain, whose struggle to protect her inheritance gives the story a more emotional focus away from the competing gunmen. Leone’s imagery is breathtaking, and Morricone delivers an amazing score, resulting in a Western masterpiece that rewards patience, particularly during its iconic opening and ending.

1

Unforgiven

1992

After spending decades playing some of the most famous gunslingers, Clint Eastwood returned to Westerns with 1992’s Unforgiven, which questioned practically everything Eastwood’s past characters had represented. He plays William Munny, a former outlaw who has abandoned his violent past to raise his children on a struggling Kansas farm. When a young gunfighter approaches him with an opportunity to collect a bounty, he reluctantly agrees and teams up with his former partner, Ned (Morgan Freeman), on a journey to Big Whiskey, Wyoming. The rest of Unforgiven is a grim examination of the difference between the romantic, glamorized Western stories and the harsh reality of killing.

Gene Hackman gives an exceptional performance as Little Bill Daggett, the town’s brutal sheriff, who falsely presents himself as a man of order but repeatedly abuses his authority. Eastwood is equally compelling as Munny, whose reputation as a legendary killer becomes difficult to reconcile with his current position as an aging, remorseful man.

Unforgiven brilliantly dismantles the idea of the “fearless gunslinger” through the English Bob subplot and the young Schofield Kid, whose excitement for violence disappears when he sees it firsthand. By the time Little Bill confronts Munny in the saloon, Unforgiven has stripped away almost every comforting illusion associated with the genre, ending with an unflinching conclusion. It’s the best old-school Western of all time, not least because it understands the genre so completely.