The Searchers had it.
High Noon had it.
Original 3:10 to Yuma had it.

The one that had it best is the remake of 3:10 to Yuma.
That was a morality play if I ever saw one.
Russell Crowe was absolutely awesome as Ben Wade.

The bad guy getting blown away in the penultimate scene...

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Rick, W0FG
CTR2 68-72

It has to have a good story with well defined characters. Then you need some excellent actors who can bring those characters to life. Good scenery helps make it a Western by firmly establishing exactly where you are. There is an important locale factor in Westerns.

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

Good quality villains.
C6

The use of period guns helps quite a bit. Colt SAAs appearing in a movie set in 1840ish kills it for me.

Besides those already named,

Open Range

Red River

and, of course,

The Magnificent Seven (the Eli Wallach character particularly)

To me it's the story.

Also when I watch, I want to "see" the character, not the actor.

I love the old westerns because they were about the character and the situation they were in.

Can you imagine Tom Cruise in a Western. No thanks.

I also like the element of danger or proving yourself a man.

I was in the gym all by myself this morning and caught myself watching The Rifleman more than I lifted.

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Wake me when it's over...

John Wayne.......

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Even older, even crankier....

Clint Eastwood ...

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I'm with the banned ...

Blue eyed Injuns.

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Dum vivo cano

John Wayne and Lee Marvin will work.

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NRA Pistol/Rifle Inst. RSO

Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones together...

authenticity is most important i think . i bugs me when i can pick out an anachronism .great background scenery is a plus .oh yeah some great riding and some good looking horseflesh is kinda nice too

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the rules? there are no rules

Doesn't hurt to have Kevin Cosner either

It's not just mortality, but the need for redemption. Not everyone who wants it succeeds in redemption. My favorite failure is Mr. Eastwood in The Unforgiven. Maybe the best western to come out in the last 20 yrs or so.

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Hold on. SWAT's at my door.

'specially the maidens....., though Michael Ansara made a heckuva chief in Texas Across the River!

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Even older, even crankier....

So far, I agree with John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Kevin Costner, etc.. All great characters and movies.
I have to throw in Sam Elliott and Tom Selleck.

To date, haven't seen any posts dealing with what I believe makes "good" ---> "great".
For me , it is the "MORALITY PLAY" theme of a movie.
As I said prior, 3:10 to Yuma remake was a morality play if I ever saw one.

RightArm is getting very close - "It's not just mortality, but the need for redemption".
Also, Steely Dan - "I love the old westerns because they were about the character and the situation they were in".

I'll continue to monitor and post a detailed opinion if no one does it .

No damn fringed shirts!

Sorry, got carried away there.

I haven't seen all of "The Unforgiven", but what I saw was excellent.

And as dated and out of fashion as many people consider it now, "High Noon" remains a great one for me. And "Lonesome Dove" was superb.

A nice little Western with no shootouts or real villains, but with a lot of gentle humor and gorgeous scenery, was "The Gray Fox", with Richard Farnsworth as an old train robber released from prison and trying to go straight without much luck. I think I'm one of maybe seventy-nine people who saw it, which is too bad.

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Oh well, what the hell.

Saw it and liked it.

Well, let's see...there's got to be jail, a dog,a pick-up truck, mama, beer or whiskey - oh, that's for a Country song, not a Cowboy movie.

Couldn't agree more with some of the earlier mentioned films including The Unforgiven, The Searchers, 3:10 to Yuma. I think the common elements have got to be the concept of redemption, and ultimately, justice served.

Though an AR rifle, and an AK type rifle have been on my "want" list for a while, I bought a Marline 1894 lever gun (.38/.357 Magnum chambering) a couple of years ago, and it has given me a lot of pleasure, including fond memories of the Rifleman, Bonanza, The Big Valley, and all of the old John Wayne westerns.

Regards,

Dave

Synergy: The interaction of multiple elements in a system to produce an effect different from or greater than the sum of their individual effects.

Story
Photography
Acting
Music

etc

I think a good movie is great with well-fitting actors, a good plot, scenery, morals, a moral dilemma, and the bad guys getting what they have earned. Gotta have some touching scenes with an underdog "going under" and a good looking woman for the main good guy to fall in love with. I bring to point "The Far Country" with Jimmy Stewart and Walter Brennan. The man who shot Liberty Valance----El Dorado----Broken Trail----Open Range----Dances with Wolves----The Comancheros

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Go big or stay home

Believable mounting tension.

There were a lot of good westerns made. I have to agree that the best include a strong theme of justice and morality. My favorite in that vein would be "The Cowboys." The character played by John Wayne takes some raw kids on a cattle drive and becomes their model for manhood. Bruce Dern made a great villain.

Don't forget Shane with Alan Ladd. My favorite cowboy bad guys were Richard Boone, Lee Marvin and Lee Van Cleef. They could just look down right mean.

Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday.

good scenery, time period correct clothes and weapons. six shooters should only hold 6 bullets. good horseflesh, dogs a +. holding the reins in your teeth a six gun in one hand and spinning a lever with the other, priceless. "fill your hands you son of a bitch". classic lines like that and "you can't serve a writ on a rat baby sister, you gotta kill it or let it be" and although not in a western the Sean Connery line from the untouchables should have been, "and what are YOU prepared to do?"

Real cows, and not those inflatable things that balloon twisters create for so many Hollywood westerns.

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Why, I aughta.....

some nice Kosher Injuns or spray tanned Mexicans.

The two best Westerns I ever saw had Slim Pickens in 'em.

One western that does not get mentioned often is "Ride the High Country". It has all of the qualities that have been mentioned in the prior posts. There is morality, redemption, fantastic scenery, outstanding actors, action, and outstanding script.
I agree with the post about guns not fitting the time period. It kills some of the enjoyment of the film. Also seeing communication towers, fashions from later time periods, etc.
One thing has to be said, a not so great western will usually beat other film genre.
Butch

Whadda ya mean close. Think of a good western without the redemption theme. Ben Wade helped one footed Dan lock him up. He was helping the vet. earn some much needed dinero and so Dan could look good for his son.

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Hold on. SWAT's at my door.

CLINT - of course!

To my mind, the essential characteristic of a "great" western is moral ambiguity. Tje John Wayne character in The Searchers was brave and tenacious but also hated (with perfectly good reason) Indians, and somehow seemed to have a lot of unexplained gold Double-Eagles. Rooster Cogburn was brave and tough but proud of his service with Captain Quantrill. Charlie (Kevin Costner) in Open Range confesses that in the Civil War he was chosen for a a unit of vicious enforcers because he was "good at it."
A brave and true character (Roy Rogers, Audie Murphy) is a good role model for twelve-year-olds, but grown-ups know that character is a lot more complicated. The great Western characters weren't wusses.

I remember seeing The Grey Fox. Very good movie. Liked Richard Farnsworth. First saw him in Anne of Green Gables. Very good actor.

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<><

RAWHIDE, now back on the air on sat morn's. don't mind it being in black & white one bit. each episode better than most oaters. and the best theme song of any show hands down. +1 to the long riders and the shootist, and also the satirical classic Blazing saddles. can't believe the DUKE turned down Slim Pickens role. could you imagine THE DUKE saying "I think you boys had enough beans" or "you use your mouth purtier than a 20$ whore". now bring back Palladin, it's been a long time.

You folks have left out the most important part of any good western. That is the young damsel (sometimes in distress) wearing a dress that must have belonged to her little sister. Usually, said damsel can go either of two ways: She wants nothing to do with the handsome cowboy and spurns his advances or is immediately smitten with the cowboy who does not seem to notice that she is after him.

In the end they usually ride off into the sunset.

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... a little behind in my work

A great movie, is like a good recipe. Lots of ingredients are needed for a great movie.
A good plot is number 1.
Good actors(not necessarily big names).
Cinematography is what i think makes a good movie great. Visuals make the impact.
For me I don't like a lot of the cussing on many of the new movies. Not that I am a prude a do more than my share. I don't like to hear it in a movie. I guess I am a hypocrite.
A little humor helps.

Gray Fox was a good flick. If you look hard Farnswoth is also in Josie Wales. He was one of the bad guys. It's a shame Farnsworth developed cancer and turned a gun on himself.

Red River - no doubt about it. The cast (especially Ms. Drew), dialogue, direction, cinematography and the cows put it near the top.

High Plains Drifter.

Punish the town and paint 'em red.

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_It was love at first shot_

Fancy sporting women in the saloons always kinda caught my eye..

In one of Tony Hillerman's detective novels about Navajo cops he says that many of the Indian extras in "Dances With Wolves" were Navajos. He said Navajos who saw the flick were delighted to hear that the extras, speaking in their own language, were making hilariously crude remarks about the size of the stars' genitalia, their parentage, etc.

I hope it's true.

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Oh well, what the hell.

The same thing happened with the Crow extras in Little Big Man, according to a friend from Montana. When the director told them to "say something in Crow," they did--none of which would have passed the censors in 1970 if anyone but other Crow had understood it.

Just got The Gray Fox and was skimming through it.

In the saloon, other guy pulls a knife on him and he busts a whisky bottle over his head. Stands over the man with a gun in his hand. "You're not worth killin', but if you come at me again I'll put a window in your skull, so help me". Then he turns to the saloon and says, "I apologize, gentlemen, for the disturbance", and walks out.

Yeah, I think this is gonna be a good one.

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I always take precautions

All I can say is: The Searchers

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Cheers, Charles
SWCA #2442

"Unforgiven". If Shakespeare would have written a western this would have been it. Plot, character, good and evil, life's twists and turns...

"We've all got it coming, kid."

I may be alone in this, but I'm going to put in a good word for Heaven's Gate, which almost every critic branded a failure when it came out over 30 years ago but which seems to me to be one of the most mature and thoughtful westerns ever made. I don't disagree that it has some draggy moments and could have been both tighter and clearer if the director and second unit team had burned as much film on the action sequences as they did on the quiet interior scenes, but the whole thing has a scope to it that raises it far above the ordinary western, and above even some of the excellent ones already mentioned in this thread.

Literate script, excellent actors, peculiar direction. Still worth a look, but don't sit down to watch it with any preconceptions in mind. This is a movie that gets better the more you think about it after the fact.

A lot of westerns seem to exist in some self-contained universe isolated in time and space. Heaven's Gate knew that the west was economically and socially connected to the Eastern United States and even Europe in ways that the traditional western either ignores or barely acknowledges.

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David Wilson

No one has mentioned the Richard Harris "A Man called Horse" movies, the original was better than the "return" second movie, but both had the makings of great western movies. Now, the location of the filming detracts a great deal in they set it in one part of the west and do the filming in a different part of the west.

Thank you. There have been a couple of movies named "The Unforgiven," but the Clint Eastwood masterpiece is, as you say, simply "Unforgiven." It makes a difference.

Mel Brooks!