17 thoughts on “Top 10 Favorite Westerns Published”

1. Congratulations John, your writing deserves a wider audience.

2. Quite a few I didn’t know on your list, John. Well done on getting published there. Shared this post on Twitter.

   Best wishes, Pete.

3. Hear. Hear.

4. Why thank you for the kind word Pam 🙂 I bet your Top 10 Favorite Westerns list is awesome too 🙂

5. I am glad that you loved it Pete 🙂 You must have loved seeing Johnny Guitar on there 🙂

6. Thank you for the kind word Paul S 🙂

7. You are deserving of all your accolades, John. I’ve never known a more passionate and learned cinephile.

   My top 10 Westerns (not including contemporary and neo westerns)
   McCabe & Mrs. Miller
   Shane
   Ride the High Country
   Once Upon a Time in the West
   True Grit (Coen Brothers)
   High Noon
   Jeremiah Johnson
   Bad Company (1972)
   The Proposition
   Unforgiven
   *Runners Up
   *Duel in the Sun
   *Johnny Guitar
   *The Assassination of Jesse James…

8. You have great taste Pam 🙂

9. 1. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
   2.Rio Bravo
   3. My Darling Clementine
   4.The Iron Horse
   5.Once Upon a Tme in the West
   6. The Last sunset
   7.Ride Lonesome
   8. Red River
   9. Man of the West
   10. Ride the High Country

10. John, your picks are all excellent choices. I have seen all of them many times. but going for the best 10 out of so many riches is a formidable task. for the sake of discussion, i will cite some instances where we differ. Beginning with Dead Man, which I would tout as a hipster western. my favorite psychedelic western is The Hired Hand, Next to Walkabout, the best application of psychedelic visuals on a mainstream picture. Our main difference seems to be that you favor the offbeat westerns while I stick mainly to the traditional ones. I love those films as well, but it was hard enough to whittle my favorite westerns down to ten. Selections from Ford, Hawks , and Peckinpah alone would invalidate most of my choices, but I wanted to represent as many different directors as possible. Realistically, my 10 favorites, in order of preference are 1.Pat Garrett and billy the Kid 2. Rio Bravo 3. The Iron Horse 4. Ride the High Country 5. Fort Apache 6. Red River 7. Stagecoach 8. The Wild bunch 9. My Darling Clementine 10. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

11. All masterworks Bill 🙂 John Ford, Howard Hawks, Budd Boetticher, Sergio Leone and Anthony Mann were truly masters of the genre 🙂

12. You got that right Bill regarding picking 10 choices alone 🙂 The Hired Hand is another perfect example of an Acid Western 🙂 I still think Dead Man counts as an Acid Western due to the surreal imagery in the film and former Chicago Reader film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum has cited it as such, but I see where you are coming from 🙂 Would you agree that Monte Hellman’s The Shooting signaled the birth of the psychedelic western? As for my choices, I want to say that The Naked Spur, Ride Lonesome, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Canyon Passage and The Big Sky are probably the only traditional ones on my list 🙂 I want to say that The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and Ride the High Country were bookends to the Classical A-level western and B-western respectively and between those two and 1969’s The Wild Bunch, it was the Spaghetti western that were giving the genre a much needed boost prior to the Peckinpah film just mentioned 🙂 Thoughts? I also love your 10 favorite westerns list here with Stagecoach and The Wild Bunch – I love both of your lists though 🙂 Btw, I am happy to be back writing blog entries 🙂

13. for some reason, i have been unable to leave comments here for several months. it would not accept my identity and after much fooling around i finally found the link to my songladder blog which was accepted. and now another proble, is that my outdated computer will not let me into the site where your westerns are posted, so i have not been able to further review your list. although i did read it several times and so remembered enough of it to comment. Frankly, I didnt find anything psychedelic about The Shooting. anOd after several frustrated viewings of it and Ride in the whirlwind, have to admit that I am not keen on either of them. I do love Run of the Arrow, if only because it reveals the fact that many southerners joined the Indians in their resistance to the northern calvary. it is a historical fact that Lincoln began the Indian wars shortly after signing the emancipation proclamation by executing nearly 100 Sioux warriors in the country’s first and most infamous mass execution. To me, the genocide against the indians was an extension of the Yankee’s military aggression of the states that seceded from the Union. Another issue Id like to raise is the problem of genre. I might have mentioned to you that when I asked clint Eastwood if the Western would ever make a return as a popular genre, he replied that although it would never again attain the popularity it once enjoyed, great films would continue to be made regardless of their genre. And by genre, I think Rod Serling accurately defined it as a generic entry into an established form. As such, I dont consider such unique films as Johnny Guitar as part of the western genre, and several of your picks are similarly un-generic, which is what i meant by non traditional. My favorite film is Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, but it is not my favorite western. That honor goes to the more traditional Rio Bravo. I would cite Unforgiven as the last of the traditional westerns, although it is closer to McCabe and mrs Miller (another candidate for the best psychedelic western although i dislike the interior scenes) than Shane, which it resembles in basic plot and themes. Finally, is it possible for you to include your best western post on your blog so it is more accessable to future reads? I did enjoy so much rereading your Robert aldrich blog. You have a wonderful archive here of your writings and I feel this latest entry might be lost if it appears exclusively on another site.

14. I think you are essentially correct by marking the end of the traditional western in 1962 with ride the high country and liberty valance, but traditional westerns continued to be made after that although the euro westerns dominated the genre. examples of traditional westerns after 1962 include cheyenne autumn, el dorado, rio lobo,the professionals, hombre, the rare breed, and death of a gunfighter,,,but none of them are of the same class as the pre-1962 westerns.

15. Before I answer any of this, I want to sincerely apologize for all the trouble you went through trying to post on here because I looked in the spam and pending folders all that time and I never saw a post from you and I was starting to worry, but I am glad that you were able to again finally 🙂

    Also, I actually did post my favorite westerns on my blog in late May, but here it is If you missed it 🙂

    John Charet’s Top 10 Favorite Westerns of All Time

16. Great list! The only one I’ve seen is Canyon Passage (1946). Here’s mine:

    The Searchers (1956)
    Stagecoach (1939)
    High Noon (1952)
    Shane (1953)
    The Big Country (1958)
    Rio Bravo (1959)
    The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
    The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
    The Furies (1950)
    Wagon Master (1950)

17. Great list Eric 🙂