Great Westerns

[fuzzyoctopus]

So I've never really seen westerns.  My parents never watched them and I never much considered it.

Until I learned that, against all odds, my husband likes westerns.  I assumed that since he goes into convulsions at the thought of anything like country music or square dancing that he wouldn't like westerns. More fool I.

So he bought 'Tombstone' and we watched it because I hadn't seen it.  While he was out of town I found "The Magnificent Seven" in the DVD bin at Wal-Mart and bought that too; neither of us having seen it before.  We watched it last night and it was just as good as an award-winning movie should be.

What other westerns are definitely worth watching?

[42]

I haven't seen a lot of westerns, but I guess I could recommend a few.

True Grit
Rio Bravo
Dances with Wolves (psuedo-western, doesn't quite follow the formula)
Man From Snowy River (Australian Western)
Quigley Down Under (Another Australian Western)
Zoro flicks

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

yeah, not my field of interest. Though I did really enjoy Shane. Others tell me not so much though. So maybe you won't like it. Young Guns (though i've nto seen it) is supposed to be worth watching.
A number of Eastwood flicks as well. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, por ejemplo.
Oh, and Fistful of Dollars.

[House of Mustard]

Stagecoach
Support Your Local Sherriff -- Hilarious (though its sequel, Support Your Local Gunslinger, was lame).
The Alamo (the old one with John Wayne as Davy Crockett)
Cat Ballou
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (does that count?  I think so.)

Also, I second 42's choices of True Grit and Quigley Down Under.

However, there are few movies that bored me as much as The Man From Snowy River.  (My wife--and everyone else on the planet--seems to love it though.)

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

What about Blazing Saddles?

[stacer]

I second/third Man from Snowy River and Quigley Down Under. The Man from Snowy River has been my favorite since I saw it in the theatre when I was 8 years old and a horse fanatic.

The Sacketts is good, too, which is a TNT version starring Sam Eliot and Tom Selleck of the original John Wayne. I don't really go for John Wayne, but he was my grandpa's favorite, so my grandma now has every John Wayne movie ever made.

My dad is such a western fanatic, too. I have so many old western things he's given me because of our mutual love of horses. Some really funny comics are the best of them.

[Slant]

If you are looking for old, true, gritty Westerns, there are three that are my all-time favorites:

Once Upon a Time in the West
The Wild Bunch
High Plains Drifter

They might be a bit rough for most tastes, but all are classics.  if you want something that has a more modern, Hollywood feel to it, The Quick And The Dead with Sharon Stone, Russel Crowe, Gene Hackman, and Leonardo DiCaprio was actually pretty entertaining as well.  Hope this helps.  

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

actually, that Quick and the Dead came across to me as just goofy and kind of made me angry. I can't believe I sat through the whole thing.

[42]

I would have to second Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid. It may not follow the Western formula entirely, but it's just a great flick.

[House of Mustard]

Ooh!  I forgot:  High Noon.  A fantastic movie whether or not you like westerns.

[Fellfrosch]

The best modern Western, and one of the best of all time in my opinion, is Unforgiven. As for older movies, the ones that have already been mentioned are all pretty good, as is McLintock! (referred to by somebody in the fight scene thread), though it's fairly misogynistic in a perniciously lighthearted way. The "Spaghetti Westerns" such as Fistful of Dollars, A Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly are all incredible. Pretty much any random John Wayne movie is worth your time, though Stagecoach (his first) and The Shootist (his last) are two of the best; also recommended are Eldorado and True Grit. Many film critics list The Searchers as the best John Wayne movie ever made, and it frequently turns up very high on their all-time movie lists, but I have yet to see it.

By the way, True Grit has one of my favorite movie quotes: "If I ever meet a Texan that ain't drunk out of a muddy hoofprint, I'll buy him a cee-gar."

[House of Mustard]

I forgot The Shootist too.  That's excellent.  Incidentally, he always considered Tie A Yellow Ribbon to be his favorite, and spoke highly of that quasi-trilogy (Tie A Yellow Ribbon, Rio Bravo, and Fort Apache).

[Master Xaio]

And you've got to have a look at the first couple in the Trinity series:
Trinity's my name
Trinity is still my name
Awesome movies, very amusing.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Rule number one if it was directed by John Ford then it was probably really good.
Rule Number two Sergio Leone equally good.
Rule Number three Clint Eastwood makes great westerns but they arent for the faint of heart (Unforgiven)
If you want to like westerns rent these movies

Stagecoach
One of the absolute best movies of all time.

Silverado
Lots of stars, lots of coolness, and John Cleese as a Sheriff.

Blazing Saddles...
Worth it just for the Parody... but a little blueer than some of his films

Maverick
Cute

The good the bad and the Ugly
WOW

Two mules for Sister Sara
Cute

The Gunfight at the OK Corral
Classic

Pale Rider
Nothing beats the feel of a good piece of hickory

Unforgiven - Intense
others in no particular order.

The Texican

How the West Was Won

Mclintock

Shane

[House of Mustard]

The Trinity movies are only fun if you've seen them a dozen times before, and it's late at night.  (If you do this, however, they're very funny.)  It's the first eleven times that are the pain.