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.

Buch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Released: September 23, 1969

Studio: Twentieth Century-Fox

Genre: Western

Box Office (numbers in millions):

Domestic: 102.31 Worldwide: ?

Adjusted for Inflation:

Domestic: 692.24 Worldwide: 1219.4

Directing: George Roy Hill

Screenwriting: William Goldman

Starring: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katharine Ross, Strother Martin

Review:

“One of the most-popular, appealing, beguilingly star-driven, tragi-comedy Westerns ever made.” ^FS Goldman’s “witty script” ^FS is “loosely based” ^FS on the real-life “charming, turn-of-the-century, train-robbing outlaws” ^FS and “early 1900’s anti-heroes” ^FS “Robert Leroy Parker (Butch Cassidy) and Harry Longbaugh (The Sundance Kid) and the Hole in the Wall gang.” ^FS

“One of the screen’s great buddy teams was born when Paul Newman and Robert Redford saddled up for this rollicking comic western about two legendary outlaws.” ^TV As the “two handsome leads,” ^FS they “redefined the buddy movie” ^A07 with their chemistry. “With a gleam in his baby blues, Newman dazzles as Butch, while Redford became a superstar with his self-deprecating portrayal of the dashing, trigger-happy Sundance.” ^TV

The story follows the “free-wheeling, non-chalant Butch (Newman) and sharpshooting Sundance (Redford)” ^FS from the Old West to “their final confrontation in South America.” ^VD After they “bungle their second attempt on the Union Pacific Express…[they] are relentlessly pursued by authorities in a posse. With Sundance’s beautiful, school-teacher lover Etta Place (Ross), they flee to Bolivia to seek further wealth. In the end, they are outnumbered and die in a blazing, hail of bullets, freeze-frame shootout, reminiscent of Bonnie and Clyde.” ^FS

“The movie’s key song ‘Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head’ is a fun counterpart to the actual plight of our friends.” ^A07 The song is featured during a light-hearted scene where Butch takes Etta on a bicycle ride.