Movies of the Wild West

There's nothing like a good movie about the Old West to remind a person that a rugged yet simple life can offer up loads of adventure. The real Old West refers to the American frontier, the colonization by the Europeans that started in the 1700's and ended in the early 1900's as the last states were admitted. 

You feel lucky... punk? Oops, wrong movie. 

This here's Gus McCrae (played by Robert Duvall) in Lonesome Dove

Writers spun out tales of romance, anarchy, and chaotic violence in the Old West - or Wild West, as some dubbed it. They took liberties in order to add far more drama to that era than there really was. But in this modern day and age, most of us won't notice or care much about such inaccuracies. It made for compelling entertainment. This approach to storytelling spilled over into film, and that's where the Western movie genre was born. 

The Old West could be depicted in many ways, from the introduction of the railroads and telegraph systems to the wild frontier, to ranchers and land-owners, conflicts with Native Americans, and early lawmen and bounty hunters versus outlaws. Cowboys and gunslingers. Just to name a few. On the printed page, such plots could appeal to the imagination, yet in film, with visuals, dialogue and music, stories were elevated to a whole new level. At least the movies that got it right.

In recent decades, I've become a fan of the western genre and have a small number of the best of the best in my home video collection. I have no aspirations to be a completist, but instead am trying to build a little library of notable and favourite western films. I have a lot of movies recorded off TV (thanks, TVOntario and Turner Classic Movies), and I won't bother trying to list all of those, some of which are minor flicks anyway. But I do have some great store-bought DVDs and Blu-rays that I'll mention here. I'm missing at least a few faves still, but they're on my shopping wishlist... High Noon and Unforgiven, just to name a couple. 

To begin with, I've got all of the Lonesome Dove TV mini-series and TV shows. The mini-series in particular play like feature-length films so I like to include them here. The Lonesome Dove stories, originally written by Larry McMurtry, are at the top of my favourites... they are highly regarded and are extremely important  to the western genre. There are five mini-series, four of which were based upon the corresponding McMurtry novels. These are:

Lonesome Dove
Return to Lonesome Dove
Streets of Laredo
Dead Man's Walk
Comanche Moon

My feature films on DVD are:

The Magnificent Seven
Once Upon a Time in the West
Open Range
The Wild Bunch
Winchester '73

... and on Blu-ray are:

3:10 to Yuma (the original from 1957)*
Heaven's Gate*
Jubal*
McCabe and Mrs. Miller*
My Darling Clementine*
Rio Bravo
The Searchers
Stagecoach*
True Grit

* Blu-rays denoted with an asterix are Criterion Collection editions, beautifully restored and packed with behind-the-scenes featurettes and interviews, plus informative printed booklets. 

Since I'm not insane about buying every western I can get my hands on, I choose to re-enjoy the carefully chosen few on my video shelves, and check out other stuff, new and old, on this new-fangled Internet thingy. And occasionally add something special, like the superior quality Criterion editions, to my collection. 

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I discuss my western film discoveries in more detail here.