Westerns: Top 25

image from Unforgiven

Top 25 Westerns This list of the best Westerns ever made was compiled by aggregating multiple best-of lists (see resources at bottom of page) along with films’ overall status in Dave’s Movie Database. Note: True Grit appears twice on this list – the 1969 original and the 2010 remake – so they are listed as one entry. 1. Unforgiven (1992) 2. High Moon (1952) 3. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) 4. The Searchers (1956) 5. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966) 6. The Wild Bunch (1969) 7. Red River (1948) 8. Once Upon a Time in the West (C’era Una Volta Il West) (1968) 9. Stagecoach (1939) 10. The Magnificent Seven (1960) 11. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) 12. The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) 13. Shane (1953) 14. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) 15. Rio Bravo (1959) 16. True Grit (1969) / True Grit (2010) 17. McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971) 18. Dances with Wolves (1990) 19. My Darling Clementine (1946) 20. A Fistful of Dollars (1964) 21. The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) 22. Blazing Saddles (1974) 23. Tombstone (1993) 24. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) 25. No Country for Old Men (2007) Resources: Dave’s Movie Database: Genre Lists ABC News/People Magazine (3/22/2011). “Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time” (includes top 5 westerns) American Film Institute (2016). “Top 10 Westerns” ArtOfManliness.com (6/4/2013). “The 17 Best Western Movies” BusinessInsider.com (9/23/2016). “The 11 greatest Westerns of all time, ranked” Complex.com (5/17/2017). “The Best Western Movies” CountryLiving.com (5/25/2019). “The 15 Best Western Movies of All Time” CowboyLifestyle.com (7/27/2018). “Top 10 Best Western Movies of All Time” GrizzlyRose.com (10/9/2018). “Top Rated Western Movies” TheGuardian.com “Top 10 westerns” Guinness Book of Film (1999). “The Top 100 Films by Genre Type” (includes top 5 westerns) HiConsumption.com (10/9/2014). “The 25 Greatest Western Movies of All Time” Independent.co.uk (2/22/2019). “The Magnificent 20: The best western films of all time” Most-Wanted-Western-Movies.com (2011). “Top 20 Classic Western Movies” Newsweek (9/5/2018). “The Best Western Movies of All Time, According to Critics and Audiences” Norman, Barry (1993). “100 Greatest Films of All Time” (includes top 10 westerns) Paste magazine (6/20/2016). “The 100 Best Western Movies of All Time” Ranker.com “The Best Western Movies Ever Made” RottenTomatoes.com “Top 100 Western Movies” TasteOfCinema.com (5/11/2014). “The 30 Best Western Movies of All Time” TVovermind.com (2018). “The 20 Best Western Movies Ever Made” Originally posted 9/2/2019; last updated 5/25/2023.