10 Classic Westerns You Haven’t Seen… But Should
on Nov 03, 2025
10 Surprising Westerns From Hollywood’s Golden Age Through The 1970s
“…The Western is American history. Needless to say, this does not mean that the films are historically accurate…”
– Jim Kitses, Horizons West
The Western is just about as old as cinema itself, with Edwin S. Porter’s The Great Train Robbery (1903) ushering in the genre on film while also revolutionizing storytelling for the silver screen.
To this day, the Western continues evolving. While the stories are often set in a time long gone, Westerns — especially the great ones — reflect the time during which they are made.
Think of the dramatization of racism in John Ford’s The Searchers (1956), or the violence worthy of the Vietnam War in Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969)… whatever the time, the Western is there to provide commentary, and sometimes even an antidote, to the problems of the present.
Beyond their cultural merit, Westerns are also fun. Whether it’s bare-back horse riding or gunslinging, gambling or saloon hall singing, the Western leans into what makes cinema great.
There’s high speed chases and slow sunsets, emotions that run deeper than the Rio Grande, and a historical backdrop of an America that may or may not have ever been.
This list of 10 American Westerns, presented in order of release, provides a wide range of films from Hollywood’s heyday, illustrating the many forms a Western can take on.
There is no singular model for what a Western should be, but for those who love Red River (1948), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), or Unforgiven (1992), consider this a point from which to jump from… like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid taking their leap of faith into the rapids below…
1. The Harvey Girls
A Western can be anything. There are Western comedies, Western melodramas, Western heist films, and more. There are even Western musicals, like George Sidney’s The Harvey Girls (1946).
Starring Judy Garland as one of the titular “Harvey Girls,” which was a name given to women who worked at Harvey House restaurants and hotels along early railroads in the West, this is a unique Western for the whole family.
There’s romance, comedy, elaborate choreography, and vivid Technicolor — and it’s all guided by the directorial hand of George Sidney, who would go on to direct Elvis Presley in one of his best films, Viva Las Vegas (1964).
Here’s a scene from The Harvey Girls, showing Judy Garland and the supporting cast singing “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe,” courtesy of Turner Classic Movies:
The Harvey Girls is presently streaming on HBO Max, and may be purchased on Blu-Ray through Warner Archive.
2. Pursued
Directed by maverick filmmaker Raoul Walsh, who infamously portrayed John Wilkes Booth as a young man in DW Griffith’s seminal silent epic The Birth of A Nation (1915), the film Pursued (1947) is a reflection of not only post-World War II military life, but is indicative of the prevailing style in filmmaking in Hollywood. Pursued has the unique distinction of being a Western noir, and it’s a film that follows a veteran of the Civil War who is suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.
Starring Hollywood bad boy Robert Mitchum, who would go on to star in idiosyncratic Westerns ranging from William A. Wellman’s Track of The Cat (1954) to Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man (1995), this is a film that sets the tone for many post-war Westerns to follow.
Other noir Westerns include André de Toth’s Ramrod (1947) and Robert Wise’s Blood on The Moon (1948).
Here’s a video essay made by Tag Gallagher for Pursued, which was released on Blu-Ray by Warner Archive:
3. Westward The Women
Westward The Women (1951) is a film of resilience, unlike many others as it blends adventure, romance, and much more. Following a man played by the debonair Robert Taylor, the film dramatizes a journey by wagon train across the country. With Taylor leading the way, just about all of the people he’s guiding through the frontier are women, and there’s 140 of them.
Their purpose for making this difficult journey? Marrying settlers of the California territory.
Of course, one of the women, played by Denise Darcel, is going to fall in love with their guide… but it’s a relationship fraught with conflict.
Along the way, they face many hardships, including an attack by a band of Native American warriors.
Directed by William Wellman, who won the first ever Academy Award for Best Picture for Wings (1927), Westward The Women ends beautifully, and is likely to leave viewers a little misty-eyed.
Here’s the trailer for Westward The Women:
Warner Archive recently restored this film and released it on Blu-Ray, and it may also be rented here, on Fandango At Home.
4. Arrowhead
“Others in the school cut their hair like white men. I did not. I am not a white man!”
– Toriano, played by Jack Palance, in Charles Marquis Warren’s Arrowhead (1953)
Race in Westerns is often a topic of discussion, both within a given Western film and in the study of Westerns as a whole. However, few films approach the subject in such a manner.
In Arrowhead, a Native American named Toriano, portrayed by Ukrainian-American actor Palance, is the son of an Apache chief who returns to his tribe from his Westernized schooling. Rather than coming back as a man of the West, he returns to his father’s tribe as an emboldened radical, touting the tribe’s most fundamentalist views.
Meanwhile, Charlton Heston portrays a cavalry officer who has been tasked with working to carry out the removal of Native tribes from United States land. The return of Toriano will throw a wrench into this plan, and it will take Charlton Heston to save everyone from the rising Apache warlord’s pointed wrath.
For lovers of the television series Gunsmoke, this film may be of particular interest, as it was written and directed by Charles Marquis Warren, the creator of the long-running Western show.
While the film is in color, here is the trailer for the film, presented in black and white:
Arrowhead may be rented here, on Amazon Prime Video.
5. Johnny Guitar
French New Wave filmmaker François Truffaut wrote of Nicholas Ray’s one-of-a-kind Western, Johnny Guitar (1954), saying, “Anyone who rejects either should never go to the movies again, never see any more films. Such people will never recognize inspiration, poetic intuition, or a framed picture, a shot, an idea, a good film, or even cinema itself.”
Shot during the McCarthy era, this is a film that echoes Arthur Miller’s 1953 play The Crucible. Instead of witches in Puritan New England, it’s a woman who earned her way to owning a saloon. The witch hunt that ensues is one of melodrama, but also art cinema — a Western with character and guts.
Starring Hollywood icon Joan Crawford, and Sterling Hayden in the title role, Johnny Guitar is a film of drama and emotion, pitting one’s past against the death of the dream of the West. It’s also a film that defies conventions, with a sheriff played by Ward Bond being dragged along by the whims of a threatened woman who fears the independence Joan Crawford’s character of Vienna embodies.
Here’s the trailer for Eureka’s restoration of Johnny Guitar:
Johnny Guitar may be rented here, on Amazon Prime Video.
6. The Man From Laramie
After serving in World War II as deputy commander of the 2nd Bombardment Wing of the United States Army Air Forces, film actor Jimmy Stewart was a changed man.
This change was reflected in many of the roles he took on upon returning to Hollywood after the end of the war, with his portrayal of George Bailey in Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life (1946) being one of his most nuanced and celebrated performances.
However, he also started acting in many Westerns, teaming up on eight occasions with film director Anthony Mann.
Among their collaborations, the Western The Man From Laramie (1955) is one of the most powerful. It’s a film of revenge that finds Jimmy Stewart portraying an honorable man who has his livelihood taken from him in a land dispute amid illicit arms trade with an Apache tribe.
In a very memorable scene, Jimmy is held down by several men before having his hand shot at pointblank as punishment for his meddling. From there, Jimmy is consumed with rage, committing himself to doing away with the corrupt cattleman who has caused him personal loss and physical pain.
Here’s the trailer for The Man From Laramie, which includes Jimmy Stewart introducing the trailer from the set of the film:
The Man From Laramie may be rented here, on Amazon Prime Video.
7. Tennessee’s Partner
Before he was the 40th president, Ronald Reagan was a Hollywood star.
While few of his films are fondly remembered today, many are due for reevaluation.
Of those, Allan Dwan’s film Tennessee’s Partner (1955) is one that could make a Reagan fan out of a Walter Mondale voter.
It’s a low budget Western, but made by one of cinema’s pioneers: Allan Dwan, who made over 400 films in his five-decade career beginning in the silent era.
With Tennessee’s Partner, Reagan plays the unlikely partner to a gambler called Tennessee (played by John Payne… yes, not John Wayne). Their path toward becoming friends finds them saving one another on a few occasions, in both love and in business.
Here’s the trailer for Tennessee’s Partner:
Tennessee’s Partner may be rented here, on Amazon Prime Video.
8. Seven Men From Now
Remember The Statler Brothers’ song “Whatever Happened To Randolph Scott”?
The song, written in 1973, is a country dirge for the Westerns of a Hollywood that was already feeling distant.
Among the genre’s most significant stars was Randolph Scott, who often played a stoic cowboy who could do little wrong.
Seven Men From Now (1956), directed by bullfighter-turned-filmmaker Budd Boetticher, is a revenge film with guts. Following a man named Ben Stride, played by Randolph Scott, the film’s action begins right from the onset.
While at a campfire with two strangers, he gradually realizes he’s speaking to two of the seven men responsible for the death of his wife. He kills them both, and then continues on the trail, searching for the remaining five.
Beyond the blood-stained drama in this tightly-wound Western, Seven Men From Now boasts a stellar supporting performance from Lee Marvin.
Here’s the trailer for Seven Men From Now:
Seven Men From Now may be rented here, on Amazon Prime Video.
9. Sergeant Rutledge
Would it be a Western list without a John Ford film?
Starring Woody Strode — who was one of the first Black football players in the NFL, playing for the Los Angeles Rams in 1946 — Ford’s film Sergeant Rutledge (1960) is a film about racism in the West.
Strode plays Sgt. Rutledge, a “Buffalo Soldier” of the 9th U.S. Cavalry in the 1880s who is wrongfully charged with rape and two counts of murder. The alleged victim is a white woman, making the defense’s work in this Western courtroom drama an uphill battle against the prevailing racism of the day.
As the defense for Sgt. Rutledge, actor Jeffrey Hunter (who memorably played the protégé to John Wayne’s character Ethan Edwards in Ford’s The Searchers (1956), as well as Frank James in Ray’s The True Story of Jesse James (1957)) plays a complex character in this fearless film about injustice.
This selection could’ve just as easily been Wagon Master (1950) or the brilliant hangover-laden Two Rode Together (1961), but Sergeant Rutledge packs the drama that will move an audience as much as it did back in 1960… or maybe even more.
Here’s the trailer for Sergeant Rutledge:
Sergeant Rutledge may be rented here, on Amazon Prime Video.
10. Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid
New Hollywood film icon Sam Peckinpah came onto the scene in the 1960s, gradually fine-tuning his hyper-stylized approach to cinematic violence. Around that time, the studio system was collapsing, giving opportunities to filmmakers, like himself, who were more daring… though not always commercial.
After the success of The Wild Bunch (1969), Peckinpah eventually makes the Western to end all Westerns. Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid (1973) is an ode to the end of the West.
Starring Kris Kristofferson, Bob Dylan, and James Coburn, among many other familiar faces, Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid is one of the finest films ever made on death and the end of an era.
In addition to starring in the film, Bob Dylan recorded the original score as well, which features the song “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.”
The film was not a hit in its day, but has grown in reputation since. Several versions of the film have circulated over the years, with preference given to the Turner Preview Cut, which has recently been reworked into the “Final Preview Cut.”
Here’s the trailer for Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid:
The Criterion Collection released this film in 2024 on Blu-Ray and 4K, offering several versions of the film for its most devoted fans (including the rarely seen theatrical cut).
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