Both iconic actors were top box office draws for decades, both seldom stretched from their familiar personas, and both played macho, conservative cowboy heroes who let their firearms do most of the talking. Each represented one of two very different strains of western, the traditional and the revisionist.
As a birthday present to Hollywood's biggest heroes of the Wild West, here are the top 57 westerns you need to see.
57. 'Meek's Cutoff' (2010)
56. 'El Topo' (1970)
Alejandro Jodorowsky's surreal, psychedelic tale virtually invented both the acid western and the midnight-movie cult hit. The director himself plays the messianic title character, a mystical gunslinger who seems to anticipate the characters Clint Eastwood will play in "High Plains Drifter" and "Pale Rider." Imagine a Sergio Leone spaghetti western with the circus atmosphere of a Fellini movie, the surrealism of a Bunuel or David Lynch picture, and the transgressive outrage of an early John Waters movie, and you'll have an idea of what Jodorowsky accomplished here.
55. 'The Great Train Robbery' (1903)
Edwin S. Porter's pioneering film is one of the very first westerns. It ends with the famous, influential, still-shocking shot of a gunman aiming his pistol right at the viewer and opening fire.
54. 'Way Out West' (1937)
In one of the earliest western spoofs, Laurel and Hardy are tasked with delivering a mine deed to an heiress, a task they screw up epically and hilariously.
53. 'The Professionals' (1966)
Lee Marvin and Burt Lancaster star in this twisty, noir-like tale of four mercenaries hired to rescue a rancher's kidnapped wife, only to find more than they bargained for once they find her. It's the "Out of the Past" of westerns.
52. 'One-Eyed Jacks' (1961)
The only movie Marlon Brando ever directed is a gritty, Freudian, dreamlike gloss on the Pat Garrett/Billy the Kid legend. Brando stars as a young outlaw, whose much older partner (frequent Brando co-star Karl Malden) has abandoned and betrayed him and gone straight. Brando the storyteller plays up the Oedipal tensions as the two men head toward the inevitable showdown.
51. 'Silverado' (1985)
50. 'Johnny Guitar' (1954)
Sterling Hayden plays the title troubadour, but Nicholas Ray's unique, lurid western is all about the women. Joan Crawford is the saloon-keeper with a past, and Mercedes McCambridge is the bitter local who bears a murderous grudge against her.
49. 'El Mariachi (1992)'
Robert Rodriguez' debut film, famously made for just $6,000, is a brilliantly staged spaghetti-western homage about an aspiring troubadour (Carlos Gallardo) in a picturesque village who gets mixed up in a bloody crime war and becomes a lethal gunslinger instead . Rodriguez had a bigger budget and bigger stars (Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek) in the two sequels ("Desperado" and "Once Upon a Time in Mexico"), but this one is still the most fun.
48. 'The Big Country' (1958)
Gregory Peck stars in this sweeping saga as a tenderfoot from Maryland who becomes embroiled in a feud between two powerful ranching families. Charlton Heston co-stars as a rowdy ranch hand and romantic rival (they both love Carroll Baker), and it's a treat to watch these two masters of the clenched-jaw school of Hollywood movie acting confront each other.
47. 'Jeremiah Johnson' (1972)
Sydney Pollack's based-in-fact drama stars Robert Redford as a fur trapper in the Rockies. Like Pollack and Redford's later "Out of Africa," it's the story of an immigrant who's a bit out of his depth dealing with the difficulties of the local terrain, the climate, and an uneasy coexistence with the natives. The scenery is stunning; it's no wonder Redford fell in love with Utah.
46. 'The Gunfighter' (1950)
Gregory Peck is Jimmy Ringo, a fast-draw artist who tries to settle down and enjoy a peaceful life. But he can't escape his reputation and is sought out by enemies and young gunslingers trying to make a name for themselves by challenging him. One of the finer examples of this familiar plot.
45. 'The Long Riders' (1980)
44. 'The Shootist' (1976)
John Wayne gets a fitting sendoff in his last movie. Playing an old gunslinger dying of cancer, and feeling out of place in the 20th century (it's 1901), he tries to live out his last days in peace and even courts a pretty widow (Lauren Bacall) whose teenage son (Ron Howard) idolizes the old man. But, of course, his past catches up to him -- giving Wayne a chance to go out in a blaze of glory.
43. 'Little Big Man' (1970)
Arthur Penn's movie is the revisionist western to end all revisionist westerns. Dustin Hoffman plays Jack Crabb, a 121-year-old white man who recalls a youth spent living among the Sioux and becoming the only white man to survive Custer's Last Stand. You can read it as an anti-Vietnam War allegory, or just as a colorful story that upends everything you thought you knew about the Old West.
42. 'Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid' (1973)
Sam Peckinpah's take on the notorious outlaw's pursuit by his former friend was a countercultural allegory back then. Today, it's just a poetic and terribly sad western with top performances by James Coburn (as Garrett), Kris Kristofferson (as Billy), and Slim Pickens as an aging gunfighter. His death scene -- wordless, drawn out, and scored to Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" -- is one of the most haunting and tragic in any western. (Dylan also made his acting debut in the film.)
41. 'Dead Man' (1995)
Jim Jarmusch's unique western is a surreal nightmare. Johnny Depp plays a meek city slicker who receives a fatal bullet wound when mistaken for a gunslinger. Accompanied by a grumbling Indian named Nobody (Gary Farmer), the slowly dying man travels further west, on a quest for spiritual release, through increasingly violent country, until he becomes the bloody desperado everyone thinks he is. Shot in deliberately grainy black-and-white, with a jangly score by Neil Young, it's a black-comic journey into the heart of darkness.
40. 'Rango' (2011)
39. 'Dances With Wolves' (1990)
Kevin Costner won Best Picture and Best Director for his revisionist epic, in which he plays an army lieutenant who comes to respect a tribe of plains Indians so much that he goes native and tries to protect them from his former comrades. It's a sad, sweeping story -- but not without its thrills, like the stirring buffalo hunt sequence.
38. 'Seven Men From Now' (1956)
Director Budd Boetticher made a series of gritty, dark westerns with star Randolph Scott that, like Anthony Mann's work with James Stewart, belies the convention that 1950s westerns were simple black-hat-white-hat morality plays. Here, Scott is a lawman who leaves a bloody trail of revenge on his search for the robbers who killed his wife.
37. 'Winchester '73' (1950)
Anthony Mann made several westerns in the 1950s that revealed a darker, more violent side of James Stewart that must have shocked fans of his aw-shucks persona. This first collaboration is the best. Stewart plays a man bent on avenging his father's death, who tracks a stolen rifle through several owners on his way to finding the killer.
36. 'The Ox-Bow Incident' (1943)
Henry Fonda stars in this stark, compact (just 75 minutes) morality tale about mob justice, playing a cowboy who stumbles onto a lynch mob bent on killing three men who may not actually be guilty. Nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, the film was an inspiration for Fonda's later classic, the jury room drama "12 Angry Men."
35. 'Lone Star' (1996)
34. 'Lonely Are the Brave' (1962)
Kirk Douglas' favorites among his own movies. He's a modern-day cowboy and drifter, one who's not at home with the rules, technology, or enclosed spaces of the 20th century. He tries to bust a pal out of jail, but when the friend won't leave, he breaks out himself on a doomed, existential quest for a kind of freedom that's no longer possible in the New West.
33. 'Open Range' (2003)
Best known for its sweeping anamorphic vistas and very grounded approach to shootouts, Kevin Costner both directs and stars in this underrated Western about two cattleman (Costner and Robert Duvall) who find both trouble and purpose when they cross paths with a ruthless land baron (a sinister Michael Gambon). The tense, climatic gunfight -- depicting cowboys as real people who miss and sometimes fumble with their guns -- is a high point, as are Costner's understated direction and performance.
32. 'High Plains Drifter' (1973)
Clint Eastwood's darkest role finds him playing another man with no name (or maybe the same one as before) who offers his protection services to a town awaiting an outlaw onslaught. But his security comes at a price that's more than the town bargained for. Is he an angel, a demon, or just a man with a vindictive sense of humor? Funny, nasty, and bleak.
31. 'The Outlaw Josey Wales' (1976)
One of Clint Eastwood's favorites among hiss own films is this saga of a farmer and Confederate soldier on a long odyssey of revenge against the Union fighters who killed his family, a quest that continues well after the Civil War has already ended. It's a film whose stature has only grown with time.
30. 'Brokeback Mountain' (2005)
29. 'Tombstone' (1993)
This isn't the most accurate account of the O.K. Corral gunfight, but it's the most sheerly entertaining, thanks largely to smart casting. Michael Biehn and Powers Boothe are fine villains, Kurt Russell makes a surprisingly good Wyatt Earp, Sam Elliott should be in every western, and Val Kilmer gives the performance of his career as Doc Holliday, a rogue who can get away with anything because he has nothing left to lose. Kudos to whoever groomed the luxuriant mustaches; they're some of the best facial hair in any movie ever.
28. 'Django Unchained' (2012)
Quentin Tarantino's inevitable spaghetti-western homage turned out to be an epic, brutal tale of two bounty hunters (Jamie Foxx and Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz) who target the horrifically cruel plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio) who once enslaved Foxx's Django and still has Django's wife (Kerry Washington). Tarantino meant the tale as a corrective to "Birth of a Nation" and a century of cinema that failed to depict American slavery as the absolute horror it was. But since it's Tarantino, it's also a headlong rush of violent adventure.
27. 'True Grit' (2010)
With all due respect to the 1969 original that won John Wayne his only Oscar, the recent Coen brothers remake starring Jeff Bridges as grizzled, one-eyed bounty hunter Rooster Cogburn is the richer film. (It's also more faithful to Charles Portis' novel.) By rights, Bridges should own the movie, but he shares it with Matt Damon's peevish young Texas ranger and all but gives it away to Hailee Steinfeld, as the revenge-driven teen who hires Cogburn to track her father's killer. Even though her longing for vengeance costs her a lifetime of pain, she demonstrates as much true grit as anyone in the movie.
26. 'Destry Rides Again' (1939)
George Marshall's western is almost ridiculously entertaining. James Stewart, in a sly performance, plays a lawman who's reluctant to use his gun, even though he's an expert sharpshooter. Marlene Dietrich (in the performance that Madeline Kahn spoofs in "Blazing Saddles") is the saloon singer who catches his eye. Comedy, music, and all the action you could want.
25. 'My Darling Clementine' (1946)
24. 'Fort Apache' (1948)
The first film in John Ford's cavalry trilogy features John Wayne and Henry Fonda clashing as commanders of a garrison under siege. Like the two movies that followed ("She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" and "Rio Grande"), its a fascinating study in styles of leadership and management, as well as a crackling adventure.
23. '3:10 to Yuma' (2007)
James Mangold's remake of the old Glenn Ford-Van Heflin western is actually better than the original. Christian Bale plays the Heflin role of a desperate farmer who agrees to take on the lucrative but hazardous job of escorting a captured criminal (Russell Crowe, in the Ford part) to the train that will take him to prison, with both men aware that the outlaw's gang will stop at nothing to free him. Bale, Crowe, and Mangold turn this simple obstacle course into something epic.
22. 'Ride the High Country' (1962)
Sam Peckinpah's first masterpiece, and Randolph Scott's swan song, is this elegiac western about two aging gunslingers (Scott and Joel McCrea) who have a falling out over the opportunity for one last big score. Like many later revisionist westerns, including several of Peckinpah's own films, this one bears the sense of loss of an old order defined by rules, giving way to a new cruelty where anything goes.
21. 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford' (2007)
This unjustly overlooked recent western takes a modern look at the Jesse James legend. Brad Pitt plays the outlaw as a man painfully self-conscious about his own fame. Casey Affleck plays Ford as a frustrated celebrity stalker, one who turns against his idol when his idol worship goes unrequited.
20. 'No Country for Old Men' (2007)
19. 'McCabe and Mrs. Miller' (1971)
Gambler Warren Beatty teams up with madam Julie Christie to open a brothel in a remote frontier town, and all goes well until the big businessmen move in on them. Robert Altman's countercultural parable, complete with a mournful Leonard Cohen soundtrack, doesn't look like any other western, thanks to the snowbound visuals, gorgeously photographed by Vilmos Zsigmond.
18. 'Blazing Saddles' (1974)
Mel Brooks' spoof remains the best western comedy of all time. For all the movie's daring humor (the bean scene!) and racial commentary (Richard Pryor co-wrote the script), it also works as a classic western, one that borrows plot elements from "Rio Bravo" and "Destry Rides Again," with shout-outs to "High Noon," "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," and Randolph Scott.
17. 'She Wore a Yellow Ribbon' (1949)
John Ford's second movie in his Cavalry trilogy (and the only one of the three that's in glorious Technicolor) stars John Wayne as a retiring commander who takes on one last mission, escorting two women to safety while trying to forestall an Indian uprising. Of course, nothing is ever that easy. Ford turns the story into an unforgettable drama of loyalty and regret.
16. 'Lonesome Dove' (1988)
Yes, it was a TV mini-series, not a theatrical film, but it was so good that it deserves a place on this list. Larry McMurtry's tale of two Texas Rangers (Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones) leading a 2,500-mile cattle drive is a classic tale of friendship, adventure, and loss. Anjelica Huston, Diane Lane, and Danny Glover round out an all-star cast.
15. 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' (1969)
14. 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance' (1962)
One of John Ford's final westerns takes a look at the mythmaking he and other western storytellers had been practicing all these years. James Stewart is the city-slicker senator who made his reputation with the killing of the title outlaw (a scary Lee Marvin), and John Wayne is a typical Wayne man of action, one whose ease with violence helps create a civilized society that has no place for a man like himself.
13. 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre' (1948)
It takes place in Mexico, but it feels like a western -- there's gold prospecting, bandits, murder, and greed. Humphrey Bogart's never been more hard-boiled. John Huston directed his father Walter to a Supporting Actor Oscar as the old prospector who should have known better.
12. 'Red River' (1948)
John Wayne offers a shockingly intense portrayal of obsession as a cowboy leading a lengthy cattle drive through dangerous territory. In his starmaking role, Montgomery Clift is his adopted son, who rebels against Wayne's martinet ways. It's another Howard Hawks movie that explores different varieties of masculinity, and one of the best.
11. 'High Noon' (1952)
Gary Cooper won an Oscar as the marshal who tries and fails to recruit locals to help him defend the town against outlaws who are due to arrive on the midday train. Fred Zinnemann's meticulous direction allows the film to unfold in real time. But the real trick in the script by Carl Foreman, himself a victim of the Hollywood blacklist, is that it can be read as either an anti-communist allegory or an anti McCarthyist allegory. Seen today, stripped of its politics, it's just a terrifically suspenseful thriller and a statement against the dangers of conformity.
10. 'The Magnificent Seven' (1960)
9. 'Shane' (1953)
8. 'Once Upon a Time in the West' (1968)
7. 'Rio Bravo' (1959)
6. 'The Wild Bunch' (1969)
5. 'A Fistful of Dollars' (1964)
4. 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' (1966)
3. 'Unforgiven' (1992)
Lending the whole enterprise some gravitas is a cast of fellow old-timers -- Morgan Freeman as Eastwood's old partner in crime, Richard Harris as an arrogant English-born gunslinger, and an Oscar-winning Gene Hackman as a town sheriff who doesn't mind resorting to violence to keep the peace. No one comes out of this situation unscathed; the violence leaves everyone either dead or damned. Even the viewer is implicated; you'll get the cathartic, climactic bloodshed you crave -- but you'll feel squeamish for wanting it and enjoying it.
2. 'Stagecoach' (1939)
1. 'The Searchers' (1956)
Besides being an indisputably great movie, it's also an incalculably influential one, a film that hints at the revisionist westerns to come and that served as a one-movie film school for directors like Coppola, Scorsese, and Spielberg. The final shot alone, with Wayne framed in the doorway of a home he feels banished from, has been stolen countless times by Ford's admirers.
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