Ride in the Whirlwind (1965), Hour of the Gun (1967), Il mio nome è Nessuno (1973), Pack Train (1953), Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973), The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), The Virginian (2013), Ride Lonesome (1959) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Old West movies.
Storyline: In 1856, backwoods businessman Logan Stuart escorts Lucy Overmire, his friend's fiancée, back home to remote Jacksonville, Oregon; in the course of the hard journey, Lucy is attracted to Logan, whose heart seems to belong to another. Once arrived in Jacksonville, a welter of subplots involve villains, fair ladies, romantic triangles, gambling fever, murder, a cabin-raising, and vigilantism...culminating with an Indian uprising that threatens all the settlers. No canyon in sight.—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>
Plot Keywords: shop owner, fiancée, banker, gambler, best friend, love interest, spirited ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Railroad surveyer Clay O'Mara goes after rustlers who murdered his father and brother. Along the way, he first arrests then teams up with outlaw Whitey Kincade, who helps Clay, only to see how long the tenderfoot lasts. Outwitting several attempts on his life engineered by the crooked lawyer who set up his family, O'Mara and a wounded Kincade face the gang. Kincade wanted to protect O'Mara and redeem himself, and goes down shooting.
Plot Keywords: sheriff, surveyor, lawyer, gunslinger, chilling, suspenseful, colorado ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Wyoming, 1890. James Averill is the Sherriff of Johnson County, a county largely inhabited by foreign immigrants. The wealthy cattle owners view the immigrant farmers as a nuisance and hindrance to them enlarging their own land. The cattlemen's association, the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, effectively declares war on the immigrant farmers, and gets the state government's blessing. They assemble an army of guns-for-hire, and, backed by the U.S. Cavalry, set out to rid the state of the immigrants. James Averill's heart is with the immigrants, but he is not sure they have a chance of winning the inevitable war.
Plot Keywords: sheriff, mercenary, land baron, immigrant, madam, bleak, gritty ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A master gunfighter teams up with a banjo-playing drifter and a Mexican tramp to foil the town leaders of Daugherty, Texas, who want to steal $100,000 from their own bank to buy land that the approaching railroad will cross.
Plot Keywords: outlaw, bounty hunter, partner, thief, bandit, friend, cool ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Bent on unearthing the cynical traitor who sold information to the enemy and caused the death of a dear brother-in-arms, the battle-tested former Union cavalry officer, Colonel Cord McNally, teams up with a pair of ex-Confederates after the Civil War. Now, as honest friends, the three companions ride into Rio Lobo--a dusty town in the middle of the desert overcome by corruption--to bring to justice the one who sold McNally out; however, the town is rife with the betrayer's murderous cut-throats. Can McNally avenge his bosom buddy and clean up Rio Lobo?—Nick Riganas
Plot Keywords: outlaw, sheriff, traitor, deputy, confederate soldier, union soldier, melodramatic ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: During the 1870s, the ruthless Jacob Walz (Glenn Ford) becomes very wealthy after locating a legendary Arizona gold mine and securing sole ownership by murdering his partner. Walz then travels to Phoenix, where he catches the attention of a beautiful and crafty woman named Julia Thomas (Ida Lupino), who has learned of his exploits. Eventually, Walz falls in love with Julia, unaware that she's already married to Pete (Gig Young), who is eyeing his fortune.
Plot Keywords: mine owner, beautiful woman, husband, murderer, melodramatic, intense, arizona ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Western about racial intolerance focuses around Kiowa claim that the Zachary daughter is one of their own, stolen in a raid. The dispute results in other whites turning their backs on the Zacharys when the truth is revealed by Mother. Cash, the hotheaded brother, reacts violently upon learning his "sister" is a "red-hide Indian." He leaves the family but returns to help them fight off an Indian raid.—<rita.richardson@arch2.nara.gov>
Plot Keywords: native american, rancher, racist, brother, adopted daughter, mother, tense ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Based on a true story, this is the tale of Josephine Monaghan, a young woman of the mid nineteenth century who is thrown out of her parents' home after being seduced by the family's portrait photographer and giving birth to his child. Josephine quickly learns that young, female, pretty, and alone are a bad combination for life in the wild west. In her desperation to survive, Josephine disguises herself as "Jo", a young man, and struggles to make a life for herself in a dingy frontier mining town. Can "Little Jo" live and love without revealing his secret?—Martin Lewison <lewison@pitt.edu>
Plot Keywords: young woman, stableman, shepherd, wife, laborer, businessman, powerful ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A U.S. marshal (Kirk Douglas) tracks an outlaw (Bruce Dern), killing his chance to be a senator from Texas.
Plot Keywords: marshal, sheriff, bandit, woman, businessman, thrilling, dark ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: When an army scout retires to a farm in New Mexico he takes pity on a white woman and her "half-breed" son recently rescued from Indians, and invites them to join him. He does this even knowing the child's father is a feared and murderous Apache and that sooner or later a showdown is almost inevitable.—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}
Plot Keywords: scout, native american, woman, warrior, son, intense, gritty ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A prospector discovers natural cement and suggests it should be used for a new dam. But this is the last thing the badmen of Trail End want, as they have a monopoly of the wagons needed to haul rocks to the site. A pretty sheriff notwithstanding, it's a job for a singing marshal.—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}
Plot Keywords: prospector, marshal, sheriff, banker, contractor, gene autry, spirited ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: The workers on the railroad haven't been paid in several months, that's because Whitey and his gang, including fast-shooting, dangerous, but likeable Utica Kid, keep holding up the train for its payroll. Grant McLaine, a former railroad employee who was fired in disgrace, is recruited to take the payroll through undercover. A young boy and a shoebox figure into the plot when Whitey's gang tries to hold up the train, and Grant and the Kid meet again to settle an old score.—A.L.Beneteau <albl@inforamp.net>
Plot Keywords: outlaw, gunslinger, lawman, railroad tycoon, brother, robber, gritty ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Michigan in 1827 was a bit off the beaten path for any B-western, especially one from Gene Autry, so Gene had to shed his Levis (since Mr. Strauss was about 20 years away from stitching his first pair together in San Francisco) and wear a different gun-belt, but the rest of his costume (hat and string-looped shirt) didn't make much of a bow in the authentic direction in this film, which finds the fur empire of Jules Brissac in Michigan's Saginaw Valley wilderness being threatened by advancing settlers. His right hand henchman, Miller Webb, disguised as an Indian, leads renegade Delawares against the settlers. Captain Gene Autry of Hamilton's Rangers is sent to investigate. Gene and his pal Smiley, aided by Randy Lane and Brissac's niece, Flora Tourney, find evidence pointing to the guilt of Brissac and Webb and round them up to make the region safe for settlers.—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>
Plot Keywords: fur trapper, singing cowboy, settler, henchman, native american, cowgirl, confident ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In his will Langham leaves his ranch to his daughter Cody but makes Gene the executor. When Gene refuses to let her marry Cummings, Cummings tries to have Gene killed. Cummings now demands money and Cody stages a fake kidnaping to raise it. But the plan backfires when Cummings learns of the hoax and turns it into a real kidnaping.—Maurice VanAuken <mvanauken@a1access.net>
Plot Keywords: ranch owner, foreman, daughter, businessman, friend, gene autry, rousing ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Texas, 1878: cheerful outlaw-buddies Jim, Lorn and Wahoo rescue spunky orphan Rannie Carter from rustling racketeers, then are forced to separate. Lorn goes on to bigger and better robberies, while Jim and Wahoo are (at first reluctantly) maneuvered into joining the Texas Rangers. For friendship's sake, the three try to keep out of direct conflict, but a showdown begins to look inevitable. And Rannie, now grown into lovely young womanhood, must choose between Lorn and Jim.—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>
Plot Keywords: texas ranger, bandit, orphan, beautiful woman, outlaw, tense, engaging ...
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