The Best Western movies, heroes an villains

[edhopper]

Shane, with Jack Palance as one of the all time great villains.

[ShadowsofBirds]

Also, Alan Rickman plays a fantastic villain in Quigley Down Under. I highly recommend that movie.

Quigley! I forgot about Quigley!
Good stuff! :D

[Rafa-Rivas-2099]

The films i mentioned are not like The Searchers or Wayne drama roles. They are action films with dramatic parts for great characters,actors like the better westerns usually are.

Those films are bleaker, less heroic than The Searchers type epic,heroic westerns. I like The Searchers but its very different from the films i recommended.

I guess that there would be sub-genres of western. I know there are some subgenres like Japanese or Spaghetti, but those labels don't really talk about the type of content but the type of setting or the creators.

My question would be, are there Western subgenres that indicate the type of action? and if so, which would be the subgenre of Leone's movies?

After seeing the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, my itch is for movies with the type of showdowns parodied in pop culture all the time. Good parodies, on top of my mind, are Back to the Future and episodes of animated series like Batman TAS, Justice League, Beetlejuice, the Real Ghostbusters, etc. Heroes or antiheroes facing town bullies in final showdows. As a matter of fact I just remember another movie that fits the bill, even though it's set in Japan: Yojimbo, which is basically A Fistful of Dollars.

[Rafa-Rivas-2099]

Shane, with Jack Palance as one of the all time great villains.

Is Shane the inspiration of Shame, from the 66 batman show?

[T Hedge Coke]

My question would be, are there Western subgenres that indicate the type of action? and if so, which would be the subgenre of Leone's movies?

Spaghetti westerns post-Leone tend to the action-oriented, but also, generally "shoot'em ups."

See also, as that sort of Western removed from the Old West setting: Yojimbo (which was remade as Fistful of Dollars, Last Man Standing, etc, and is based, at core, on a Dashiell Hammett novel), The Crow, The Getaway (the original, anyway), Gun Crazy ("This is a fairytale about a woman and guns"), either Vampire Hunter D movie, large chunks of Kill Bill, Robert Rodriguez's Mariachi trilogy, The Crow: Wicked Prayer, half of John Carpenter's movies, including Ghosts of Mars, Big Trouble in Little China, Assault on Precinct 13, Vampires and Escape from LA...

As a matter of fact I just remember another movie that fits the bill, even though it's set in Japan: Yojimbo, which is basically A Fistful of Dollars.

The basic story of those movies, and all the others that've been based on it, is an American story. It's Dashiell "The Maltese Falcon" Hammett. When it comes down to it, the Western is American, sometimes modified or codified by others, but it's an American mode, an American myth, especially that "playing both sides" gambit. At least, as it comes down in popular entertainment of the past hundred some years.

[aNamored]

I'm a fan of the original Django; it's not an outstanding story but it's very hardcore for a 60s flick. Some of the other spaghetti-serials are enjoyable, such those starring the gambler Sartana.

It's interesting to see some of the "tough westerns" the US brought out in the 1950s that allegedly influenced the Europeans, such as various Anthony Mann westerns, like MAN OF THE WEST and THE NAKED SPUR, both starring an actor most people don't deem very "tough" these days: James Stewart.

Django
Keoma (despite the awful soundtrack)
Dead Men Ride
And God Said to Cain
Blindman
Any Garko Sartana definitely.

The non Leone Spaghetti westerns are far more enjoyable to me, but those and High Plains Drifter opened my eyes to the genre...

Once I saw s

[Global Honored]

One of the best Westerns of all-time is on AMC right now.
Winchester 73 starring Jimmy Stewart. Love that one.

[stelok]

I always thought John Wayne was the best Western hero.

Westerns used to be a popular genre. It was topped now by science fiction & fantasy, pirates and gangsters.

[Kieran_Frost]

I always thought John Wayne was the best Western hero.

I would disagree. His complete lack of acting ability (for me) makes his films pretty much unwatchable.

[T Hedge Coke]

I have a lot more time for John Wayne than just about any other Indian I know, but when I think of the pinnacle of Westerns, Eastwood's face, the Eastwood touch, keeps cropping back up. And that's despite my not being all that hot on Unforgiven.

And, when you see a Western parody, anymore, it's mostly Eastwood scenes you see parodied or imitated, from Back to the Future to Sailor Moon.

[Kieran_Frost]

I have a lot more time for John Wayne than just about any other Indian I know.

Ummmm... WHAT?

but when I think of the pinnacle of Westerns, Eastwood's face, the Eastwood touch, keeps cropping back up. And that's despite my not being all that hot on Unforgiven.
And, when you see a Western parody, anymore, it's mostly Eastwood scenes you see parodied or imitated, from Back to the Future to Sailor Moon.

Eastwood is awesome (both as a director, and a star of Westerns).

[Omega Alpha]

The Searchers is ABSOLUTELY NOT a film you should watch if you're unfamiliar with both John Wayne's and John Ford's movies, since it's a culmination and subversion at the same of the mythology Ford had built for the west, as well as of John Wayne's screen persona.

I would disagree. His complete lack of acting ability (for me) makes his films pretty much unwatchable.

The man was not Daniel Day Lewis, but he wasn't Steven Seagal either.

[ForeverTaskmaster]

Terence Hill was awesome in My Name Is Nobody. And a western with Bud Spencer and Terence Hill can never do wrong for the sheer entertainment value.

[jesse_custer]

The John Wayne vs. Clint Eastwood discussion here is ridiculous. Neither Wayne nor Eastwood showed much "acting" in their best westerns (I use quotations marks because "acting" has become a pretentious label). They pretty much played a certain type of character with slight variations. Both Wayne and Eastwood lived off of screen presence and great line delivery. It's disingenuous and biased to pretend that Wayne couldn't act at all or that Eastwood was closer to Brando.

[T Hedge Coke]

Ummmm... WHAT?

Most Indigenous Americans have little or no time for the Duke just out of reflex. And, yeah, he did some problematic movies, but he also did some great movies. And, he only gets loud about racial politics irl, after he gets thoroughly mocked for the attempted pro-integration (and unnecessarily weirdly sexist) McLintock. Which, doesn't speak highly of him, but also doesn't make his movies all retroactively suck, and now he's dead anyhow.

It's weird; you go to a rez and everyone will swear westerns are shit, nobody watches %*($!ing westerns, but five seconds of Ennio Morricone and everyone's in front of the TV, 'cause that's not a western, that's serious business.