Random top ten: Westerns

Published on Wednesday 24 June 2009 14:53

1 The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966)

The final part of Sergio Leone's trilogy featuring Clint Eastwood as the man-with-no-name is the perfect fusion of images, acting and score. Others may favour Once Upon A Time in the West but I'll never tire of watching Eli Wallach pelt round the tombstones to the accompaniment of Ennio Morricone's magical score.

2 Unforgiven (1992)

Clint Eastwood allowed David Webb People's script, originally titled "The Cut Whore Murder", to ferment in his bottom drawer until he was old enough to play the retired killer drawn back to the gun by the promise of a payout. Classic line: "Dyin' ain't much of a livin', son."

3 The Big Silence (1969)

Released the same year as the feelgood True Grit, Sergio Corbucci's brutal Western is, perhaps, the bleakest "oater" ever put on screen, ending, as it does, with a bloodbath from which only the baddies emerge alive. Yet it is also among the most beautiful of Westerns, shot in a striking landscape of freshly fallen snow. Not one to watch with granny.

4 True Grit (1969)

The Coen Brothers have announced plans to remake this classic. Hmmm. Well, after The Lady Killers, one to avoid, I'll wager. Instead, concentrate on the classic image of John Wayne (above) putting reins between teeth, drawing both pistols after hollering: "Well fill your hands, you son of a bitch."

5 The Wild Bunch (1969)

While Sam Peckinpah's ode to the death of the West is still notorious for its violence, overshadowing its tender moments of camaraderie as William Holden leads his Texan bandits to their death in revolutionary Mexico in 1914.

6 She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)

The director once stated to an American Senate hearing: "My name's John Ford, I make Westerns". But among classics such as The Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance my favourite remains his elegiac tale of a cavalry officer on the eve of retirement, in which John Wayne gave his second best performance.

7 The Beguiled (1971)

Dismissed by one critic as "a must for sadists and woman-haters" it's with trepidation that I suggest Don Siegel's adaptation of Thomas Cullinan's novel, in which a Unionist soldier hides in a Confederate ladies' school where he seduces and is later killed by his conquests, but its atmosphere is truly haunting.

8 Wyatt Earp (1994)

It was first devised as an eight-hour TV mini-series, but Lawrence Kasdan eventually dragged his tale of legendary law-man onto the big screen with Kevin Costner comfortably filling both boots and spurs.

9 The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)

Clint Eastwood fired the director and scriptwriter, Phil Kaufman, after a few days as the dailies lacked an epic quality that he was anxious to achieve, so he took over the camera himself – with majestic results.

10 The Shootist (1976)

John Wayne as an aged gunfighter dying of cancer, filmed at a time when the shadow of the disease was soon to fall on the actor himself. The opening credits tell the story of his life in scenes culled from his greatest Westerns. Beautiful.