Bad Company (1972), Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), The Big Country (1958), Buffalo Boys (2018), The Shootist (1976), Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), Little Big Man (1970), Lonely Are the Brave (1962) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best American West movies.
Storyline: One of the last bills signed by President Lincoln authorizes pushing the Union Pacific Railroad across the wilderness to California. But financial opportunist Asa Barrows hopes to profit from obstructing it. Chief troubleshooter Jeff Butler has his hands full fighting Barrows' agent, gambler Sid Campeau; Campeau's partner Dick Allen is Jeff's war buddy and rival suitor for engineer's daughter Molly Monahan. Who will survive the effort to push the railroad through at any cost?—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>
Plot Keywords: daughter, railroad worker, postal worker, gambler, banker, spectacular, patriotic ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In the Oklahoma territory at the turn of the twentieth century, two young cowboys vie with a violent ranch hand and a traveling peddler for the hearts of the women they love.
Plot Keywords: cowboy, aunt, farmer, peddler, young woman, friend, airy ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A fur trader (Burt Lancaster) and a cultured slave (Ossie Davis) have run-ins with Indians and marauders.
Plot Keywords: trapper, slave, native american, thief, outlaw, amusing, offbeat ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Teenager Ben Mockridge feels life in a Wild West farm town has nothing better to offer than horse-cart racing with other hicks, so he naively begs cattle company owner Frank Culpepper to engage him as the youngest cowboy for a long cattle trail to a fort. His mother barely notices. Ben doesn't even seem to get it when he's told to report as 'little Mary' to the old cook, whose words, "Cowboy is something you do only if you have nothing better." gradually become clear. Instead of an exciting heroic macho life, it's endless hard work, dumb chores and embarrassment, even getting literally caught with his pants down, robbed of his horse, and witnessing unpunished crimes...—KGF Vissers
Plot Keywords: teen boy, cowboy, cook, mother, cattle rustler, leader, gritty ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Overly shy cowboy Gene inherits a meat-packing plant, then faces stiff competition from snooty Ann Randolph, rival owner determined to do him in.—Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>
Plot Keywords: gene autry, cowboy, competitor, sheriff, business owner, lighthearted, spirited ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Herders guide an enormous flock of sheep to summer pastures on their final drive through the Beartooth Mountains.
Plot Keywords: shepherd, partner, cowboy, fascinating, spirited, montana, wilderness ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A band of drunken thugs overruns a small village in the Indian Nation that is run by Minister Goodnight and his daughter Eula and proceed to violate and kill the villagers. Miss Goodnight teams up with ruthless Marshal Rooster J. Cogburn to go after them and bring them to justice.—Christopher D. Ryan <cryan@direct.ca>
Plot Keywords: judge, lawman, spinster, daughter, outlaw, native american, witty ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Texas Ranger Jake Cutter arrests gambler Paul Regret, but soon finds himself teamed with his prisoner in an undercover effort to defeat a band of renegade arms merchants and thieves dealing with the Comanches known as Comancheros.
Plot Keywords: texas ranger, native american, outlaw, gun runner, gambler, prisoner, gritty ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: With the end of the North American Civil War, the manufacturers of repeating rifles find a profitable means of making money selling the weapons to the North American Indians, using the front man John Lattimer to sell the rifles to the Cheyenne. While traveling in a stagecoach with Calamity Jane and William "Buffalo Bill" Cody and his young wife Louisa Cody that want to settle down in Hays City managing a hotel, Wild Bill Hickok finds the guide Breezy wounded by arrows and telling that the Indians are attacking a fort using repeating rifles. Hickok meets Gen. George A. Custer that assigns Buffalo Bill to guide a troop with ammunition to help the fort. Meanwhile the Cheyenne kidnap Calamity Jane, forcing Hickok to expose himself to rescue her.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Plot Keywords: military officer, cowboy, indian, buffalo bill, tense, thrilling, american west ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: After her father dies Pat Riley (Merna Kennedy), returns home from an eastern board school and takes charge of the family horse ranch. She immediately has a spat with the ranch foreman Ken Benson (Ken Maynard). He is trying to convince her that the smooth-talking Steve Frazier (Niles Welch) has an hidden agenda for wanting to buy the ranch's ramada of broken wild horses. Turns out he does...he represents a company that makes dog food.—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>
Plot Keywords: cowboy, horse, rancher, horse owner, sheriff, businessman, spirited ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Farmer and family man Johnny Cobb moonlights as a two dollar a month Sheriff with a homemade badge in the quiet little town of Firecreek. When a gang of freebooters passes through, their leader Larkin, who is suffering from a minor wound, agrees to spend the night. The gang members prove to be vicious, sadistic sociopaths who take advantage of the frightened townspeople, humiliating them for their own perverse amusement. Although Larkin disapproves of their behavior, his leadership role is tenuous, and he is reluctant to test it by exercising control over his men. The mild-mannered Cobb faces a series of challenges from the gang's antisocial behavior. Things come to a head when Meli, an Indian woman with a mixed race child, incurs an attempted sexual attack by one of gang. Arthur, a simpleton stable boy, comes to her aid and accidentally kills the attacker. Cobb locks up Arthur to keep him safe, but when the Sheriff leaves town to visit his wife, who is struggling in labor, there is no one to control the gang. Cobb decides the time has come to act.—duke1029
Plot Keywords: sheriff, bandit, wife, daughter, preacher, tense, thrilling ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: This Gene Autry entry was sold to the exhibitors as a "Special" (a term used about once a production season when Republic wanted to charge the exhibitors a higher fee than usual for an Autry film) and finds "Rancho Grande foreman Gene Autry more than a little distressed when he learns that the heirs of the ranch, siblings Kay, Patsy and Tom Dodge, are on their way. The young Dodges have a nation-wide reputation as wild irresponsibles, and Gene already has his hands full trying to save the ranch from foreclosure. Before his death, the late John Dodge had mortgaged the ranch in order to secure funds for a vast irrigation system which must be completed by a certain date or face foreclosure from the Citrus Valley Association. Kay and Tom Dodge show up with intentions of turning the property into a pleasure resort for their eastern society friends, and they are encouraged in this by Dodge family attorney Emory Benson, who also happens to be a heavy stockholder in the Citrus Valley Association and will profit greatly if the Dodges are unable to meet their obligations. To ensure this will happen, Benson also hires some henchies to dynamite the irrigation project. But, hey, not to worry, this isn't the first time (nor the last) that Gene has faced the problem of impudent heirs taking bad advice.—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>
Plot Keywords: gene autry, foreman, brother, sister, attorney, ranch hand, rousing ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Sven Hanson is one of a number of farmers whom Ed McNeil wants to run off their land (because he knows there's oil on it). When Hanson is murdered by McNeil's gunman, Johnny Crale, Hanson's friend Pepe Mirada hides his knowledge of the murderer's identity in order to protect his family. When Hanson's son George arrives and takes up his father's cause, not only Mirada but also Johnny Crale begin to reevaluate their attitudes.—Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>
Plot Keywords: whaler, land baron, sheriff, gunslinger, father, gutsy, raw ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Dempsey Rae, a cowboy with no clear aim in life, winds up working on a spread with a hard lady owner just arrived from the East. She needs a tough new top hand and uses all her means of persuasion to get Rae to take the job. But he doesn't like the way the other settlers are getting treated and starts to side with them, despite their introduction of the barbed wire he loathes.—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}
Plot Keywords: drifter, rancher, gunslinger, young man, woman, gripping, rousing ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Rich kid Danny Churchill (Rooney) has a taste for wine, women and song, but not for higher education. So his father ships him to an all-male college out West where there's not supposed to be a female for miles. But before Danny arrives, he spies a pair of legs extending out from under a stalled roadster. They belong to the Dean's granddaughter, Ginger Gray (Garland), who is more interested in keeping the financially strapped college open than falling for Danny's romantic line. At least at first...—Shawn Ashley
Plot Keywords: young man, young woman, father, dean, daughter, student, endearing ...
Movie Details Click Here!