Highest-Rated Movies about 'Wild West'

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), Unforgiven (1992), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), A Fistful of Dollars - Per un pugno di dollari (1964), High Noon (1952), The Shootist (1976), Winchester '73 (1950), Westward the Women (1951) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Wild West movies.

#1. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Storyline: Jill McBain travels to the wild frontier; Utah - where she and her new husband planned to settle down. Upon arrival, she finds him and his children dead. There's a lot of land, and potential, but there's those who want to take it - at any cost. Even if it means killing a man and his kids.

Plot Keywords: harmonica, woman in bathtub, railway station, widow, husband wife relationship, child killer, seduction ...

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#2. Unforgiven (1992)

Storyline: The town of Big Whiskey, Wyoming is full of normal people trying to lead quiet lives. Cowboys try to make a living. Sheriff "Little Bill" Daggett (Gene Hackman) tries to build a house and keep a heavy-handed order. The town prostitutes just try to get by.Then a couple of cowboys cut up one of them. Dissatisfied with Bill's justice, the prostitutes put a bounty on the cowboys. The bounty attracts a young gun billing himself as "The Schofield Kid" (Jaimz Woolvett), and aging killer William Munny (Clint Eastwood). Munny reformed for his young wife, and has been raising crops and two children in peace. But his wife is dead. Farm life is hard. And Munny is no good at it. So he calls his old partner Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman), saddles his ornery nag, and rides off to kill one more time, blurring the lines between heroism and villainy, man and myth.

Plot Keywords: one last job, widower, police brutality, regret, sex, train, writer ...

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#3. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

Storyline: When Senator Ransom Stoddard returns home to Shinbone for the funeral of Tom Doniphon, he recounts to a local newspaper editor the story behind it all. He had come to town many years before, a lawyer by profession. The stage was robbed on its way in by the local ruffian, Liberty Valance, and Stoddard has nothing to his name left save a few law books. He gets a job in the kitchen at the Ericson's restaurant and there meets his future wife, Hallie. The territory is vying for Statehood and Stoddard is selected as a representative over Valance, who continues terrorizing the town. When he destroys the local newspaper office and attacks the editor, Stoddard calls him out, though the conclusion is not quite as straightforward as legend would have it.

Plot Keywords: friend, showdown, pistol, stagecoach, outlaw, funeral, lantern ...

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#5. High Noon (1952)

Storyline: On the day he gets married and hangs up his badge, Marshal Will Kane is told that a man he sent to prison years before, Frank Miller, is returning on the noon train to exact his revenge. Having initially decided to leave with his new spouse, Will decides he must go back and face Miller. However, when he seeks the help of the townspeople he has protected for so long, they turn their backs on him. It seems Kane may have to face Miller alone, as well as the rest of Miller's gang, who are waiting for him at the station.

Plot Keywords: one against many, morality, quick draw, real time, gunfight, brawl, fistfight ...

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#6. The Shootist (1976)

Storyline: John Books an aging gunfighter goes to see a doctor he knows for a second opinion after another doctor told him he has a cancer which is terminal. The doctor confirms what the other said. He says Books has a month maybe two left. He takes a room in the boarding house and the son of the woman who runs it recognizes him and tells his mother who he is. She doesn't like his kind but when he tells her of his condition, she empathizes. Her son wants him to teach him how to use a gun. Books tries to tell him that killing is not something he wants to live with. Books, not wanting to go through the agony of dying from cancer, tries to find a quicker way to go.

Plot Keywords: lead actor's last film, tucson arizona, el paso texas, reference to arizona, tragic hero, dark hero, western town ...

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#7. Winchester '73 (1950)

Storyline: In a marksmanship contest, Lin McAdam wins a prized Winchester rifle, which is immediately stolen by the runner-up, Dutch Henry Brown. This "story of a rifle" then follows McAdams' pursuit, and the rifle as it changes hands, until a final showdown and shoot-out on a rocky mountain precipice.

Plot Keywords: winchester rifle, native american, old west, shootout, indian war, gun violence, gunfire ...

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#8. Westward the Women (1951)

Storyline: In a time when "The West" pretty much ends in Texas and only California is slowly being populated by the white men, there's a severe lack of women among the workers on Roy Whitman's farm in the California Valley. So he goes back east to Chicago to recruit 150 women willing to become wives for his employees. From the candidates he selects 138 who seem able to survive a months long journey across "The Great American Desert" and the Rocky Mountains.—Tom Zoerner <Tom.Zoerner@informatik.uni-erlangen.de>

Plot Keywords: wild west, native american attack, hotel, cowboy, journey, frenchwoman, french accent ...

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#9. Il mio nome è Nessuno (1973)

Storyline: Jack Beauregard, once the greatest gunslinger of the Old West, only wants to move to Europe and retire in peace, but a young gunfighter, known only as "Nobody," idolizes him and wants to see him go out in a blaze of glory. He arranges for Jack to face the 150-man gang known as The Wild Bunch and earn his place in history.

Plot Keywords: gunslinger, retirement, cowboy, spaghetti western, saloon, albuquerque new mexico, arizona territory ...

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#10. Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969)

Storyline: McCullough is "passing through on my way to Australia" when he takes a job in a gold rush town. After a startling display of marksmanship, he immediately arrests the youngest son of the evil landowner (Danby). A battle of hired guns begins as McCullough continues to tame the town and defeat the gunslingers with a combination of skill and wit.—John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net>

Plot Keywords: family relationships, deputy, courage, conscience, confidence, sidekick, brother brother relationship ...

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#11. The Professionals (1966)

Storyline: A rich Texan, J.W. Grant, selects three men and invites them to his private train to offer them a contract: Rescue his wife who has been kidnapped by a Mexican revolutionary. The leader of the men, Rico, decides they would be a better team if Grant would hire one more man, an explosives expert. Grant quickly agrees and soon the four are off to complete the contract. However, while on the trail, they discover some interesting facts, like has Mrs. Grant 'really' been kidnapped?

Plot Keywords: mexico, mexican revolution, based on novel, kidnapping, train, breasts, buxom ...

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#13. The Man From Laramie (1955)

Storyline: Mysterious Will Lockhart delivers supplies to storekeeper Barbara Waggoman at Coronado, an isolated town in Apache country. Before long, he's tangled with Dave Waggoman, vicious son of autocratic rancher Alec and cousin of sweet Barbara. But he sticks around town, his presence a catalyst for changes in people's lives, searching for someone he doesn't know...who's been selling rifles to the Apaches.—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>

Plot Keywords: father son relationship, ranch foreman, general store, rifle, apache indian, apache, new mexico ...

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#14. Bend of the River (1952)

Storyline: Two men with questionable pasts, Glyn McLyntock and his friend Cole, lead a wagon-train load of homesteaders from Missouri to the Oregon territory. They establish a settlement outside of Portland and as winter nears, it is necessary for McLyntock and Cole to rescue and deliver food and supplies being held in Portland by corrupt officials. On the trip back to the settlement, up river and over a mountain, Cole engineers a mutiny to divert the supplies to a gold mining camp for a handsome profit.—Herman Seifer <alagain@aol.com>

Plot Keywords: gunfight, western hero, hero, saved from hanging, love triangle, knife, male female relationship ...

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#15. The Tin Star (1957)

Storyline: Veteran bounty-hunter Morg Hickman rides into a town in danger. The sheriff has been killed, and young inexperienced Ben Owens named a temporary replacement until a permanent can be found. Ben wants to be that permanent replacement, so needs to impress the townspeople with his skill. When he finds that Morg was a sheriff for a long time before he became a bounty-hunter, he asks the older man to teach him. Morg thinks that being a sheriff is a foolish goal, but agrees to instruct Ben in handling people, more important to a sheriff than handling a gun.—Ken Yousten <kyousten@bev.net>

Plot Keywords: stagecoach robbery, wanted poster, arson, baby born, birthday party, double barreled shotgun, duel ...

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