3:10 to Yuma
When stubborn farmer, Dan Evans (Ven Heflin), attempts to bring wanted criminal, Ben Wade (Glenn Ford) to the authorities in Yuma and collect the reward, he's in for quite a challenge. Desperate, the captive criminal offers the poor farmer $10,000 to set him free. While waiting for the train, the two men engage in a brutal battle of wills and as Evans eludes Wade's gang of miscreant thugs, he must fight his own moral battle and catch the 3:10 to Yuma. A poignant and chilling western, 3:10 TO YUMA evokes more thought and emotion with its timing and clever scripting than most traditional shot gun-riddled Westerns ever achieve. Director Delmer Daves teams up with pulp writer Elmore Leonard (who would go on to script GET SHORTY and JACKIE BROWN) to deliver this sharp and biting western classic.

The Alamo
The Duke directs (with the uncredited help of his friend and mentor John Ford) this flag-waving spectacular about the courageous struggle by 182 American heroes to defend a small Catholic mission to the death and eventually win Texas with the help of Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett, and Sam Houston. The restored, widescreen edition of Wayne's epic is at the original length and includes the theatrical trailer. Academy Award Nominations: 7, including Best Picture, Best Song ("Green Leaves of Summer"). Academy Awards: Best Sound.

Blazing Saddles
In the Wild West of 1874, a corrupt attorney general (Harvey Korman) plots to drive out the residents of the town of Rock Ridge in order to sell the land to a railroad company, so he sends bandits to terrorize the townspeople. When they request a new sheriff, they wind up with Bart (Clevon Little), a black railroad worker, whom they're not too happy about. But by partnering with Jim, the Waco Kid (Gene Wilder), Bart manages to win over the residents and to defeat the bad guys, led by the none-too-bright Taggart (Slim Pickens).

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
With the West becoming civilized, two aging outlaws, Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) and the Sundance Kid (Robert Redford), leave their Hole-in-the-Wall Gang to head for a better life in Bolivia, but they're trailed by thugs hired by the owner of a train they robbed one too many times.

Comanche Station
In this exciting western, a loner puts aside a ten year search for his kidnapped wife to help rescue another settler and is lead into an ambush staged by a vicious outlaw.

Dances With Wolves
In 1865, Civil War hero Lt. John Dunbar asks to be reassigned to the western frontier before it disappears. At his isolated post he develops a relationship with the peaceful Lakota Sioux and a white woman who lives among them, finding greater kinship with them than with his own people.

Dead Man
An accountant named William Blake (Johnny Depp) travels to the Old West town of Machine from his Cleveland home after he's promised a job. But when he gets there, the job is gone, and to make matters worse, he's soon shot by a jealous husband. Slowly dying from the gunshot wound, Blake meets a Native American man who shepherds him through the last hours of his life.

Destry Rides Again
DESTRY RIDES AGAIN will forever be remembered for Marlene Dietrich's performance as Frenchy, a crooked saloon waitress with a heart of gold. Her rendition of "See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have" is one of the highlights of her career. But DESTRY RIDES AGAIN has much more to offer than just Dietrich's performance. This hilarious satire carries Jimmy Stewart in the lead as Tom Destry, a supposedly tough law enforcement man who doesn't like guns. Stewart's comic touches are brilliant as he eagerly gives out educational anecdotes anytime an opportunity affords itself. The plot concerns the efforts of a saloon owner and a corrupt Mayor to rob the local cowpokes blind. Frenchy's on the payroll of the bad guys, but when sparks fly between her and Destry, her loyalty becomes a deciding factor in whether it's Destry or the bad guys who will ride off into the sunset.

El Dorado
In the town of El Dorado, wealthy landowner Bart Jason (Ed Asner) is embroiled in a struggle with the MacDonald family, who own a large amount of land just outside town lines. Jason hires gunman Cole Thornton (John Wayne) to scare the MacDonalds in hope that they'll back down. Cole is pleased to discover that his old friend J.B. (Robert Mitchum) is now the sheriff of the town. The sheriff warns Cole that involvement with the crooked Jason will get him arrested. Further circumstances entwine the hired gun with the MacDonald family, and he sets out to destroy Jason. Hawks' unheralded western, with a fine script by Leigh Brackett (THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK), features plot similarities to his earlier classic RIO BRAVO.

A Fistful of Dollars
The first true Spaghetti Western follows the exploits of a nameless drifter (Clint Eastwood) who wanders into a town torn apart by greed, corruption, and revenge. The clever, tough-talking gunslinger then plays the town's two feuding families off each other to his own benefit. As members of each family are planted in the ground, the gold in his pockets gets heavier and heavier. This violent remake of Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo made Eastwood a star, and sparked two sequels, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

For a Few Dollars More
In the second film in Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Western trilogy (A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS being the first and THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY the last), the Man with No Name (Clint Eastwood) teams up with gunslinger Colonel Mortimer (Lee Van Cleef) in order to extract reward money from Indio (Gian Maria Volonte), a mean and vicious bandit. There is little doubt as to No Name's financial intentions in the hunt, but Mortimer seems to be driven by something a bit deeper. A series of flashbacks (which would become a Leone signature device) provides the background for Colonel Mortimer's anger and desire for revenge. Morricone's score combined with Leone's trademark long and lingering shots bring the viewer ever closer to the human side of the Man with No Name. Although the film was not released in the United States until 1967, it was produced and released internationally in 1965.

Fort Apache
The first film of John Ford's celebrated Cavalry Trilogy, FORT APACHE mirrors the effects of the director's wartime experience on his attitude toward military command. Lt. Col. Owen Thursday (Henry Fonda), a West Point-trained Civil War veteran, is sent to command the remote Arizona outpost of Fort Apache. An arrogant, by-the-book officer, he's annoyed at having drawn such an ignominious assignment. Despite the warnings of veteran Indian-fighter Capt. Kirby York (John Wayne), he dismisses the notion that a group of savages could possibly be of concern to one possessing his military prowess. After Thursday's daughter, Philadelphia (Shirley Temple), and young Lt. Michael O'Rourke (Ward Bond) find the bodies of some mutilated soldiers, it's discovered that Indian agent Silas Meacham (Grant Withers) has been stirring the Apaches up by selling them liquor illegally. York persuades Thursday to withhold all action until he can arrange peace talks with Cochise (Miguel Inclan), but when the Indian chief shows up for the palaver he finds that the blindly willful army commander has called out the entire regiment for an attack on the Apache force. A tragic, absorbingly complex study of the problems of command, FORT APACHE benefits enormously from Fonda's superb performance and the exhaustive research of screenwriter Frank S. Nugent into Apache culture and the army outposts of the era.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Three men — Clint Eastwood (the good), Lee Van Cleef (the bad), and Eli Wallach (the ugly) — know that somewhere in a cemetery is a stash of gold. They all hope to get it, but each man carries only a partial clue to its exact whereabouts, so they need each other to locate the loot.

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
Of all the film versions of the famed 1881 gunfight, this one, starring Burt Lancaster as Wyatt Earp and Kirk Douglas as Doc Holliday, probably has the highest testosterone quotient. Focusing on the friendship between the forthright, responsible sheriff and the risk-taking, consumptive gambler, it suggests that their relationship is based on this opposition of qualities. Wyatt's stormy romance with gambler Laura Benbow (Rhonda Fleming) and Doc's rivalry with Johnny Ringo (John Ireland) over the affections of local madam Kate Fisher (Jo Van Fleet) add to the tension preceding the final showdown. When Wyatt's brothers, Tombstone lawmen, ask for his help in evening the odds against Ike Clanton (Lyle Bettger), his brothers, the McLowerys, and Johnny Ringo, Doc decides to join his friend. After Wyatt gets to town, he quickly puts a crimp in Ike's cattle-rustling activities, which leads the outlaw to set him up for assassination. A mix-up leads to Wyatt's youngest brother, Jimmy (Martin Milner), getting killed in Wyatt's place. Doc tries to talk him out of revenge, but the enraged lawman will have none of it, and the scene is set for the historic final gun battle. This solid, well-made Western is hoisted by the fine screenplay by novelist Leon Uris and the charisma of the two stars, as well as an outstanding suporting cast, including Dennis Hopper, Jack Elam, Lee Van Cleef, Earl Holliman, and Kenneth Tobey.

High Noon
Will Kane (Gary Cooper) is set to retire as marshal of a small Western village and marry his sweetheart (Grace Kelly), when he learns that three old enemies are in town and a fourth is on the way. Will's friends and neighbors tell him to leave, and he does, but his pride gets the better of him and he returns, with the hope that the community will band together and root out the bad men. But as the fourth villain approaches on the noon train, Will realizes his colleagues are backing down and he'll have to fight the four alone.

Hombre
An entertaining and wholly different type of western, Martin Ritt's HOMBRE is based on a novel by Hollywood favorite Elmore Leonard (JACKIE BROWN). Paul Newman stars as John Russell, a white man raised by Apaches. When his last living relative dies, Russell inherits property that he decides to sell to a man in a neighboring town. So, Russell gets a ride on a stagecoach, along with seven other white passengers, to make the sale. However, when Russell's Apache heritage is discovered, the other passengers force him to ride on top of the coach. Along the way, the coach is raided by thieves who steal its horses and a substantial amount of money from one of the passengers, named Favor. Russell is able to get the money back from the thieves, but Favor's wife has been taken hostage and, robbed of their horses, the passengers are stranded. Russell is indifferent to the fate of Favor's wife, but the group cannot argue because he is the only one among them who knows the way home. Chased by the thieves for the money they still have, the group has to make a stand at an abandoned mine where they call on Russell to save Favor's wife.

Hondo
A cavalry rider (Wayne) seeks to protect a mother and son who are living in a dangerous Apache war area.

How the West Was Won
Hollywood's most celebrated luminaries--behind the camera as well as in front of it--combined talents to present this epic tale of the development of the American West from the 1830s through the Civil War to the end of the century, as seen through the eyes of one pioneer family. The film, divided into three chapters--"The Civil War" (directed by John Ford), "The Railroad" (directed by George Marshall), and "The River, the Plains, the Outlaws" (directed by Henry Hathaway)--tells the story of the Prescotts, a spirited group of easterners who make a declaration to migrate west. When their parents are lost in a tragic river accident, Eve (Carroll Baker) and Lilith (Debbie Reynolds) go their separate ways. Eve remains on the land that took her parents, settling down with the well-intentioned Linus Rawlings (James Stewart), while Lilith becomes a singer who is courted by the conniving Cleve Van Valen (Gregory Peck) when he learns that she has inherited a fortune in California. As time passes and the Civil War takes the life of Linus, the newest generation of Prescott offspring struggles with even greater danger and loss, in the form of fierce Indians as well as family archrivals. Top-notch production values and an endless string of solid performances have earned HOW THE WEST WAS WON the well-deserved label as one of Hollywood's most revered classics.

Hud
Martin Ritt's HUD is an adaptation of Larry McMurtry's novel HORSEMAN, PASS BY, successfully transformed into an entertaining and ambitious contemporary Western. Set on a Texas ranch where Cadillacs, cattle, and transistor radios coexist uneasily, the film stars Paul Newman as the hedonistic, arrogant, and rebellious farmhand Hud Bannon. Hud is constantly at odds with his kind father Homer (Melvyn Douglas), who blames him for the death of his brother. Hud further strains their relationship when he begins taking his nephew out drinking and chasing women. But when it appears that Homer's herd of cattle may have contracted hoof-and-mouth disease, he asks his son's help and advice. Predictably, Homer and Hud disagree about what should be done with the cattle, so Hud tries to gain ownership of the ranch--which could mean taking away his father's sole possession and livelihood. Beautifully photographed, the film has a clean visual style, emphasizing both the open spaces of the Texan landscape and the Cadillacs and Dr. Pepper signs that adorn it. Patricia Neal won an oscar for her role, and Newman's performance gives the film its wit and considerable velocity; his character, Hud, is morally reprehensible but still likeable and charismatic, and he carries the film forward to its surprising and poignant ending.

Jeremiah Johnson
Sydney Pollack directs this notable picturesque film in which a solitary man named Jeremiah Johnson (Robert Redford) battles ruthless Indians, who use him as the target of a long-awaited vendetta, and the merciless elements of nature, in search of peace. Set in the mid-19th century, after the Civil War, the film centers on Jeremiah as he becomes disillusioned with the ways of his civilization and the ravages of war, and he sets out determined to survive in the Rocky Mountain wilderness by himself.

The Last of the Mohicans
The Last of the Mohicans, Michael Mann's adaptation of the classic novel, tells the story of Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis), a white orphan raised by Indians, who joins a small band of English soldiers and civilians to fight the French on American soil in the 18th century. Amid the battles, he finds himself falling for a British commander's daughter (Madeleine Stowe).

Little Big Man
LITTLE BIG MAN was significant when it was made because of its editing, which was still being explored in Hollywood at the time as a vehicle for innovative, simple storytelling.

Arthur Penn's film of Thomas Berger's bestselling novel demystifies the Old West with its funny, chaotic portrayal of one man's experiences in its closing days. Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman), a 121-year-old Indian living in a rest home, relates his incredible life experiences. According to Crabb's somewhat fanciful tales, he was raised by the Cheyenne from the age of 10 only to be seized by whites when he was 15. He then embarks on a string of failed attempts to find a place for himself in the world. These bring him into contact with (among many others) Wild Bill Hickok, the US Cavalry, a former preacher's wife-turned-prostitute, his own spunky frontierswoman sister, and General George Armstrong Custer during the Battle of Little Big Horn. The result is a funny, spiritual film with a humane view of the plight of Native Americans.

Lonely Are the Brave
Jack Burns tries to spring his friend from jail and ends up on the wrong side of the law and on the run alone. The sheriff must bring him to justice even though his sympathies lie with Jack.

The Magnificent Seven
A western take on Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven finds a small Mexican town hiring seven American gunfighters for protection from marauding bandits.

The Man From Snowy River
After his father's death, young Jim Craig (Tom Burlinson) leaves his home in the Snowy River valley to work for a wealthy landlord, who happens to be the estranged twin brother of Jim's mentor, a grizzled old prospector (both twins are played by Kirk Douglas). While fighting to earn his spurs by breaking a herd of wild horses, Jim falls in love with his employer's spunky daughter, Jessica (Sigrid Thornton). When one of the horses escapes and the blame falls on Jim, the boy must return to the Australian hills where he grew up, in order to find the horse and come back a man.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
In John Ford's stark, melancholy swan song for the conventional frontier Western, aged Senator Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) returns to the small town of Shinbone with his wife, Hallie (Vera Miles), for the funeral of his friend, Tom Doniphan (John Wayne), where he recounts for reporters his relationship with the man. His arrival in the town years earlier as a newly minted lawyer had been welcomed with a vicious beating by Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin), a flamboyant thug hired by powerful business interests fearful of the lawyer's intentions to stump for statehood. Doniphan, a rancher and feared gunman, finds Stoddard unconscious, takes him into town, and continues to protect him, particularly after coming to realize that the woman he loves cares more for the lawyer. Despite Doniphan's warnings that the only law in the region comes at the end of a gun barrel, the stubborn lawyer insists on teaching the illiterate townspeople about the rule of law in a democratic society. When Stoddard is elected as the regional delegate to the territorial convention, Valance baits the politician, a notoriously inept gunman, into a showdown.

The film, which plays like a Western version of Freud's CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS, reflects the aging director's ambivalence about many of the beliefs that had animated his earlier work. Shot on two soundstages because of a limited budget and Ford's poor health, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE blends a stripped-down look with an intentionally fractured, ambiguous narrative to stand as a haunting elegy for the fearless gunman, the endless wilderness, and the loss of freedom their vanishing betokens.

The Mask of Zorro
The aging, original Zorro (Anthony Hopkins) escapes from imprisonment to mentor a new Zorro (Antonio Banderas) to fill his swashbuckling shoes. The nuevo Zorro is in for quite a surprise when he meets the proto-Zorro's daughter (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who was kidnapped as an infant and raised as a governor's daughter.

McCabe and Mrs. Miller
Around the turn of the 20th century, gambler John McCabe (Warren Beatty) arrives in the town of Presbyterian Church, where, with the help of enterprising prostitute Mrs. Miller (Julie Christie), he sets up a successful casino and brothel, revitalizing the town's economy. The local mining company isn't too happy with their success, however, and decides to buy them out.

My Darling Clementine
In another of his classic Westerns, John Ford again reflects upon the advance of civilization on the receding frontier, recounting the events leading up to and including the legendary gunfight at the O.K. Corral. As they drive their cattle toward California, Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) and his brothers, Morgan (Ward Bond), Virgil (Tim Holt), and young James (Don Garner), stop outside Tombstone, Arizona, where they refuse an offer for their stock made by Old Man Clanton (Walter Brennan) and his son, Ike (Grant Withers). The three older brothers ride into town, and, after Wyatt subdues a drunk, return to the wagons to find James dead and their cattle stolen. With little doubt about who the perpetrators are, Wyatt decides to accept the offer to be marshal of Tombstone that he had just recently refused. Despite Wyatt's tense first encounter with melancholy gambler and gunslinger Doc Holliday (Victor Mature), a wary, tacit friendship grows between the two men, which is soon complicated by the arrival of Doc's former love, the demure Clementine Carter (Cathy Downs). Although ostensibly focused on the famed gunfight, MY DARLING CLEMENTINE's more concerned--like many of Ford's films--with the creation of a community, the rule of law, and the civilizing influence of women on the wild and woolly West. When the showdown finally comes, it's without blood lust, as the Earp brothers conduct themselves with the ritual solemnity of samurai warriors. Given Samuel Engel's terse, elliptical screenplay, Fonda gives a subtle, brilliantly understated performance in the lead role, establishing a naturalist motif that is picked up and furthered by Joseph MacDonald's magnificent, barely lit shots of Ford's beloved Monument Valley.

My Name Is Nobody
A western spoof about an easygoing gunslinger and the legendary shooter he idolizes who wants to hang up his gun for good. Produced by Sergio Leone.

Once Upon a Time in the West
Sergio Leone's epic western follows Harmonica (Charles Bronson) and a notorious desperado, Frank (Henry Fonda), as they fight to protect a widow from an assassin sent by the railroad company.

Open Range
Four men (Kevin Costner, Robert Duvall, Diego Luna, and Abraham Benrubi) living in the Wild West band together to rid their town of a rancher who's created an outlaw principality using brute force and scare tactics. Annette Bening plays Costner's love interest.

The Outlaw Josey Wales
As the film opens, Josey Wales is a simple farmer in Missouri. When a vicious band of Union Red Legs, led by Terrill (Bill McKinney), burns his home to the ground, killing his wife and son, Wales joins a gang of Confederate raiders, determined to get revenge. After the Confederacy loses the war, Wales sets out on his own, an outlaw who kills to survive. He eventually meets an old Indian (Chief Dan George, in a wonderfully sympathetic performance) and some other outcasts, and together they seek out a more peaceful existence. But Terrill continues to hunt Wales, and the simple farmer is forced to fight again. Critics did not take Clint Eastwood's THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES seriously in 1976. Today, many consider it one of the greatest Westerns ever made. Here the West is an ugly and brutal place, as it is in Sergio Leone's films, but this is a different kind of Eastwood hero. He has a name, a sense of humor, and a heart. Made in the shadow of Vietnam and Watergate, the film conveys a bitter distrust of government but also a longing to live in peace. Next to UNFORGIVEN, this is the most sweeping and emotionally complex of Eastwood's Westerns.

The Ox-Bow Incident
Henry Fonda stars in this story of two drifters who wander into a Western town to find that a local farmer has been murdered and his cattle stolen. The two men, along with the townsfolk, form a posse bent on doing justice at any cost. They find men in possession of the stolen cattle, who may or may not be guilty of stealing them, but let anger cloud their good judgment in dealing with them.

Pale Rider
A girl kneels over the grave of her murdered dog, praying for a miracle, while off in the distance, a man rides toward town on a pale horse. Clint Eastwood's PALE RIDER was the filmmaker's first Western in nearly a decade. It finds a pleasant balance between the mystical revisionism of films such as HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER and the traditional Western. Eastwood stars as the Preacher, who wanders into a dusty California town and tries to rescue a community of gold prospectors that is being terrorized by the local corporate mining operation, which is strip-mining the land. He's taken in by Hull Barrett (Michael Moriarty), who lives with Sarah Wheeler (Carrie Snodgrass) and her 14-year-old daughter, she of the murdered pooch, Megan (Sydney Penny). The Preacher is something of a blend of Eastwood's Man with No Name and the title character of George Stevens's SHANE. The story and treatment are straightforward and entertaining, and the strong performances draw the audience in. The Preacher remains a mysterious character, but in the end, as he takes on the evil mining corporation's hired guns, it's impossible not to root for him.

The Professionals
A wealthy rancher, Frank Carter (Ralph Bellamy), hires four tough gunslingers to rescue his wife (Claudia Cardinale), who is being held captive by Captain Rasa (Jack Palance), one of Pancho Villa's most desperate revolutionaries, in this dynamic and hard-hitting Western set against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution of 1917. The wild West commando team consists of a dynamite expert (Burt Lancaster), an ex-revolutionary and munitions expert (Lee Marvin), a horse specialist (Robert Ryan), and a tracker (Woody Strode). On their mission to return Carter's highly prized wife, they track the Mexican revolutionaries through rough and rugged desert terrain, determined to outsmart, outshoot, and outride anyone they come across--until they meet the the charismatic Rasa and discover that Carter's seductive wife is in love with the Mexican outlaw and has no intention of returning with the band of "professionals." Based on the novel A MULE FOR THE MARQUESA by Frank O'Rourke, this beautifully rendered Western features a star-studded cast delivering finely crafted and charismatic performances. Burt Lancaster is at his acrobatic and mercurial best as the rowdy gunslinger.

Red River
RED RIVER, Howard Hawks's masterpiece, is one of the greatest Westerns ever filmed, a saga of obsession and rivalry between a man and his adoptive son amid an epic struggle for survival in the Old West. Tom Dunson (John Wayne) journeys west to Texas to build a cattle empire and adopts Matthew Garth, a young boy orphaned by an Indian raid. Years later, Matthew (Montgomery Clift) returns from the Civil War and joins Dunson on a massive cattle drive north undertaken to avoid financial ruin. Stampedes and Indian attacks build tension, but it is Dunson's ironfisted leadership that causes the most problems, finally bringing the action to a boiling point that pits father against son. This bold canvas of the American frontier features stirring performances, including Clift in his first film and Wayne in one of his finest and most complex roles, stunning photography shot on location in Arizona, and a perfect balance of action, drama, romance, and comedy from one of Hollywood's greatest directors.

Rio Bravo
No-nonsense Texas border sheriff John T. Chance (John Wayne) fights off ruthless mercenary gunmen in order to keep a murderer in custody. A ragtag band of volunteers, consisting of a singing kid, a toothless old man, a recovering alcoholic, and a spunky woman, assist. Contains an interesting sing-along interlude among the group, and yes, the Duke participates.

The Searchers
Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) returns from the Civil War to his home in Texas to find that a Comanche raiding party has kidnapped his niece. Together with his nephew Martin, Ethan sets out to find her, but it becomes increasingly unclear whether he wants to rescue or kill her, since she is part Comanche herself.

Shane
Shane (Alan Ladd) steps into a conflict between homesteaders and cattle ranchers and discovers that one man, Rufus Ryker (Emile Meyer), has sent for an ace gunslinger, Jack Wilson (Jack Palance), to get rid of him.

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
A lament for the passage of time and the second in the director's acclaimed series of cavalry films, John Ford's SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON stars John Wayne as Capt. Nathan Brittles, a cavalry officer stationed in the Southwest. While contemplating his retirement, which is only a week away, Brittles is assigned to escort the wife and niece of his commanding officer, Maj. Mac Allshard (George O'Brien), to the stage line at Sudros Wells. Although he would prefer to battle the rampaging Cheyenne Indians as his final action, Brittles obeys orders. En route, two of the men in Brittles's patrol, Lieutenants Cohill and Pennell (John Agar and Harry Carey Jr.), get an eyeful of the major's distracting niece, Olivia (Joanne Dru), and nearly kill each other trying to attract her attention. Brittles then gets word from a scout, Sergeant Tyree (Ben Johnson), that a group of Arapaho Indian warriors is heading straight toward Sudros Wells. Wayne is at his best in his sensitive portrayal of an older man reluctantly stepping away from the only life he's known. Despite the constant skirmishing of Ford and cinematographer Winston Hoch, the cameraman won an Oscar for his work on the film and would go on to shoot the director's THE QUIET MAN and THE SEARCHERS.

The Shootist
J.B. Books (John Wayne) is a legendary gunfighter dying of cancer, or so says his lifelong doctor (Jimmy Stewart). Books has returned to Carson City, Nev., to die in peace, renting a room at the boarding home of a widow (Lauren Bacall). When Mrs. Rogers' son (Ron Howard) discovers that their boarder is really the famous shooter, word spreads quickly. First a reporter shows up, and then some bad guys do. Books disposes of them, but there are still the local sheriff (Harry Morgan) and old enemies to face. As the end draws near, Books knows he has a choice: die a slow death or engage in a shootout with the young guns and show them what made him a legend.

Stagecoach
Eight passengers traveling from Tonto to Lordsburg find their coach attacked by Geronimo and his band of warriors.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
An American (Humphrey Bogart) slumming through Tampico, Mexico, meets another Yankee bum (Tim Holt) and the two of them go to work for a shady contractor who nearly refuses to pay them for their work until the two knock some sense into 'em. With a few bucks in their pockets, the two head for a local bar and then later to a flophouse, where they meet a colorful old gold prospector (Walt Huston). He tells them there's still gold in them there hills and the three of them, who've become close, set out to find their fortunes. But will greed ruin them and their friendship?

True Grit
Based on Charles Portis' novel, John Wayne is crotchety U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn, who would rather stay home than chase criminals. He heeds the call, though, when 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Kim Darby) calls on him to avenge her father's death at the hands of a man who has escaped into Indian territory. Glen Campbell is a Texas ranger who accompanies them for his own reasons. Wayne reprised the role six years later in Rooster Cogburn

Unforgiven
In this critically acclaimed film (it won many awards and is often cited as Clint Eastwood's best work) set in the Old West, circa 1880, Eastwood plays an aging gunslinger named William Munny, who long ago retired from his violence-filled past to settle down with a family. But after his wife is killed, Munny starts running low on cash and is in danger of losing his farm. Desperate to make ends meet, he finds himself presented with a tempting deal: A group of prostitutes from a neighboring town offer him $500 to take out two cowboys who murdered one of their friends.

The Wild Bunch
Just before World War I, a group of outlaws tries to rob a bank, intent on using the money to retire. But the job goes awry, and the gang flees to Mexico in the aftermath. Once there, they agree to steal a shipment of guns.

Winchester '73
Anthony Mann's edgy, psychological western features a powerful performance by Jimmy Stewart as a man obsessed. In the old west, cowboy Lin McAdam wins a valuable Winchester 1873 repeating rifle in a shooting contest--which his brother instantly steals. This leads to a rousing series of adventures for McAdam, as he attempts to track down the weapon, which passes through the hands of a number of dangerous people. Meanwhile, Lin also must deal with the cold-blooded murder of his father. Seeking vengeance, the cowboy sets out to find the killer. And when he does, the two men match skills in a violent, deadly showdown.

Wyatt Earp
Kevin Costner plays the titular character, the most famous lawman ever to ride through the Wild West. Gene Hackman is Wyatt's iron-willed father and Dennis Quaid is his deadly best friend, Doc Holliday.

Young Guns
British ranchowner John Tunstall (Terence Stamp) hires six young men to help him tend and guard his ranch. In addition he also teaches them to read and to be civilized, but soon Tunstall is murdered by a corrupt and ruthless competing cattle rancher. The six 'young guns' go seeking revenge and are erroneously branded outlaws by the law, until they can clear their names. The six young guns are played by Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Charlie Sheen, Dermot Mulroney and Casey Siemaszko.