Top 10 Westerns

[NyQuil]

Would anyone consider "There Will Be Blood" as a Western?

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Surprised by the lack of mention for No Country for Old Men. One of the great films of this century.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Would anyone consider "There Will Be Blood" as a Western?

I wouldn't but I'd love to hear the argument as to why it would be.

 

[NyQuil]

Surprised by the lack of mention for No Country for Old Men. One of the great films of this century.

It was mentioned.

 

[NyQuil]

I wouldn't but I'd love to hear the argument as to why it would be.

Here's a few references:

"There Will Be Blood blends the pursuits of industry, the burden of conscience, the sleight-of hand religious manipulation and the savage truth of western frontier life to create a film that garners the same feeling as a renaissance fresco, gracing the walls of a holy place."

"The original savage truth of western life and of finding fortune is that you are in mortal peril. In a moment of strange predestination H.W’s biological father baptises his son with oil, only to be crushed by malfunctioning equipment in the following scene."

"Oil men like Plainview who industrialised the frontier heralded the end of the old west and perhaps its men of morality and values as we know it. PTA and Day-Lewis don’t appear to reset compasses with this vision of the west, but instead to show the audience that the point was spinning like a tornado."

Western Wednesday with Blake Howard: There Will Be Blood | FilmInk

Marvelously photographed by Anderson veteran Robert Elswit largely around Marfa, Texas (where “Giant” was shot), “There Will Be Blood” is western to its core, presenting a vast, uncaring environment that dwarfs the grasping men who are determined to wrest hidden wealth from the earth.

'There Will Be Blood'

I must first say that I’m a huge fan of Paul Thomas Anderson‘s work. Magnolia is one of my favorite movies of all time. I love how he tells a story. I love the performances he gets out of his actors/actresses. And from someone who comes from a filmmaking background, I love his cinematic style (the steadicam tracking shots…etc). That said, I hate westerns. And while There Will Be Blood is not technically a western, my good friend and fellow critic Mel Valentin assured me that for all this was a western without the traditional cowboy characters.

There Will Be Blood Review – /Film

As an analysis of the American experience, the film invites a comparison with the massive body of Western films created by John Ford. Both filmmakers use their work to tell a story of the nation, but Anderson begins where Ford ended. As a son of immigrants to Maine, John Ford embraced a romantic vision of the frontier and invented the West as we popularly understand it. In film after film, John Wayne embodied the American spirit: energetic, physically imposing, self-reliant, resourceful, courageous and invariably moral. As time passed, Ford’s vision grew darker. In “The Searchers” (1956), Wayne’s driven character keeps a faltering grip on his own sanity, and in the end is excluded from civilization. In “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” (1962), Wayne is a respected anachronism, and in “Cheyenne Autumn” (1964), a revisionist, remorseful view of the Indian wars, he does not appear at all. Near the end of his career, Ford recognized the Western myth as flawed at best, but at worst as fraudulent.

After Sunset: P.T. Anderson's 'There Will Be Blood'

 

[TheAngryHank]

Josey wales..

Godless ,fantastic gun fight in the final episode.

 

[montreal]

Surprised by the lack of mention for No Country for Old Men. One of the great films of this century.

I wouldn't consider it a western but I always thought that movie was very overrated.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

I wouldn't consider it a western but I always thought that movie was very overrated.

What didn't you like about it and why wouldn't you consider it a Western?

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Here's a few references:



Western Wednesday with Blake Howard: There Will Be Blood | FilmInk



'There Will Be Blood'



There Will Be Blood Review – /Film



After Sunset: P.T. Anderson's 'There Will Be Blood'

Thanks. Will give it a read.

 

[montreal]

What didn't you like about it and why wouldn't you consider it a Western?

it's more of an action film or thriller. I just didn't think it was anything special, a guy going around killing people with an odd weapon.

 

[Eisen]

it's more of an action film or thriller. I just didn't think it was anything special, a guy going around killing people with an odd weapon.

And it sort of needs cowboys to be a Western.

 

[Osprey]

There is a sub-genre called the contemporary western or neo-western for westerns that are set in more modern times:

Contemporary Western
Also known as Neo-Westerns, these films have contemporary U.S. settings, and they utilize Old West themes and motifs (a rebellious anti-hero, open plains and desert landscapes, and gunfights). For the most part, they still take place in the American West and reveal the progression of the Old West mentality into the late 20th and early 21st centuries. This subgenre often features Old West-type characters struggling with displacement in a "civilized" world that rejects their outdated brand of justice.

Examples include Nicholas Ray's The Lusty Men (1952); John Sturges's Bad Day at Black Rock (1955); Lonely Are the Brave, screenplay by Dalton Trumbo (1962), Hud, starring Paul Newman (1963); The Getaway (1972); Junior Bonner (1972); Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974); Hearts of the West starring Jeff Bridges (1975); Alan J. Pakula's Comes a Horseman (1978); J. W. Coop, directed/co-written by and starring Cliff Robertson; Robert Rodríguez's El Mariachi (1992), Desperado (1995) and Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003); John Sayles's Lone Star (1996); Tommy Lee Jones's The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005); Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain (2005); Wim Wenders's Don't Come Knocking (2005); Joel and Ethan Coen's No Country for Old Men (2007); El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019); the television shows Justified (2010–2015) and Longmire (2012-2017); Hell or High Water (2016) and Wind River (2017), both written by Taylor Sheridan; and the superhero film Logan (2017). Call of Juarez: The Cartel is an example of a Neo-Western video game. Likewise, the television series Breaking Bad, which takes place in modern times, features many examples of Western archetypes. According to creator Vince Gilligan, "After the first Breaking Bad episode, it started to dawn on me that we could be making a contemporary western. So you see scenes that are like gunfighters squaring off, like Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef—we have Walt and others like that."[25]

Western (genre) - Wikipedia

No Country for Old Men is cited as an example of that sub-genre, so, technically, in the broad sense, it counts as a western. That said, when I (and most people) hear "western," we think of traditional ones set in the Old West. As such, I, personally, would not consider it to be a "western," but a neo-western, instead, if that distinction makes any sense.

 

[Chili]

There is a sub-genre called the contemporary western or neo-western for westerns that are set in more modern times:

Western (genre) - Wikipedia

No Country for Old Men is cited as an example of that sub-genre, so, technically, in the broad sense, it counts as a western. That said, when I (and most people) hear "western," we think of traditional ones set in the Old West. As such, I, personally, would not consider it to be a "western," but a neo-western, instead, if that makes any sense.

El Mariachi is an of example of that. Old west story in modern setting. That movie would have been among my favorites above.

 

[firewagonHOCKEY]

The quick and the dead is pretty horrible and cringe worthy. I re-watched Silverado not so long ago and didn't feel it held up.
One I really like is Open Range with Costner and Duvall. Basically any western with Robert Duvall is great, such as Lonesome Dove.
Otherwise top never Westerns to me are Unforgiven, Tombstone , The Good the Bad and the Ugly and True Grit. I am not sure if I count No country for old men as a western and it still feels like it ended to abruptly for me to rate it so high. If you call it a western you might as well call The Mandalorian a western. I don't call for example, Cold Mountain a western.

 

[Ozz]

1: Blazing Saddles
2: Shanghai Noon
3: The 3 Caballeros
4: Three Amigos
5-10: ?

I really had to think beyond #1...

 

[Jussi]

The lack of Rio Bravo in so many lists... Dean Martin's finest moment on screen.

 

[Osprey]

The lack of Rio Bravo in so many lists... Dean Martin's finest moment on screen.

I have it on my to-watch list for the next week or two, as well as its tongue-in-cheek followup, El Dorado. I think that I've seen Rio Bravo, but it would've been so long ago. I left off of my list a lot of great Westerns that I just didn't feel confident adding because I hadn't seen them in a long time (like Lonesome Dove, which I just love, but which I haven't seen in ages because the darn thing is 6 hours long). I suspect that that's the case for a lot of posters.

 

[Jussi]

I have it on my to-watch list for the next week or two, as well as its tongue-in-cheek followup, El Dorado. I think that I've seen Rio Bravo, but it would've been so long ago. I left off of my list a lot of great Westerns that I just didn't feel confident adding because I hadn't seen them in a long time (like Lonesome Dove, which I just love, but which I haven't seen in ages because the darn thing is 6 hours long). I suspect that that's the case for a lot of posters.

We watched it so many times in 8th and 9th grades because our "own" teacher liked it a lot and when we had back-to-back classes and nothing that was on the curriculum to do that day, he put the tape in the VCR and off we went.

 

[peate]

McLintock, just to see John Wayne spank Maureen O'Hara.

 

[td_ice]

No particular order. 10 that I enjoy watching over again. There are other westerners that I found "better" but have no desire to see more than once.

Winchester '73
Broken Arrow
3:10 to Yuma (original)
Sons of Katie Elder
Rio Bravo
Fastest Gun Alive
Arrowhead
The Man from Laramie
Day of the Evil Gun
Destry

 

[Ducks in a row]

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
Unforgiven (1992)
A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
For a Few Dollars More (1965)
Tombstone (1993)
Dances with Wolves (1990)
Blazing Saddles (1974)
Django Unchained (2012)
The Hateful Eight (2015)

In no particular order. Not set in stone I could remove some and replace them with other western movie on any given day.

 

[Ben Grimm]

The Magnificent Seven/Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Red River
High Noon
Stagecoach
Once Upon a Time in the West
Shane
Unforgiven
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The Wild Bunch
The Searchers

 

[Desdichado93]

Eastwood/Leone dollars trilogy.
Dances with wolves
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Back to the future III
Silverado
Tombstone

 

[Dipsy Doodle]

Lemonade Joe
Track of the Cat
Once Upon A Time In The West
For a Few Dollars More
The Naked Spur
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
My Darling Clementine
The Ox-Bow Incident
Unforgiven
Warlock

 

[Kshahdoo]

The best western ever, Soviet cartoon One Cowboy, Two Cowboy. You don't need to speak Russian to understand it.