Movie » Action & Adventure Westerns

A U.S. Marshall and a Mexican bandit are involved in an explosive saga leading a gang of renegades and outlaws in a deadly search for a lost canyon of gold. But conflicts doublecrosses and mysterious clues bring out tempers and complications.

"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." That's more than the code of a newspaperman in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance; it's practically the operating credo of director John Ford, the most honored of American filmmakers. In this late film from a long career, Ford looks at the civilizing of an Old West town, Shinbone, through the sad memories of settlers looking back. In the town's wide-open youth, two-fisted Westerner John Wayne and tenderfoot newcomer James Stewart clash over a woman (Vera Miles) but ultimately unite against the notorious outlaw Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). Ford's nostalgia for the past is tempered by his stark approach, unusual for the visual poet of Stagecoach and The Searchers. The two heavyweights, Wayne and Stewart, are good together, with Wayne the embodiment of rugged individualism and Stewart the idealistic prophet of the civilization that will eventually tame the Wild West. This may be the saddest Western ever made, closer to an elegy than an action movie, and as cleanly beautiful as its central symbol, the cactus rose. --Robert Horton See more photos, specs, and reviews

While in a neighboring town some locals from Sheriff Maddox' domain accidentally kill a man. So the stern unbending Maddox goes there to arrest the missing men a task that proves much harder than he expected thanks to his rude and arrogant manner. The residents quickly view him as an enemy and demand that he leave. As a result town boss Vincent Bronson whom the fugitives work for sends one henchman after another to kill Maddox.

Sidney Poitier directs and stars in this all-black western about an ex-Union Army cavalry soldier leading a group of recently-freed slaves to the western frontier in post-Civil War America. Tagging along with Buck are his wife Ruth Ruby Dee and a con man disguised as a preacher Harry Belafonte in his first onscreen pairing with Poitier. The black homesteaders' progress is seriously impeded by a sadistic racist Cameron Mitchell and his band of murderous thugs who resent the slaves' newfound freedom and wish to send them back to a life of servitude and sharecropping in Louisiana. With equal parts drama and comedy--as well as Biblical allusions to the story of Exodus--Buck and his followers must summon all their courage to contend with the racists on their journey to freedom.

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After being sentenced to death for their participation in a bank robbery a pair of outlaw brothers take a beautiful woman hostage and flee across the Mexican desert. Naturally she falls for one of them even though her husband was killed in the bank robbery. Though the plot stretches credulity this one's still worth watching for the sheer fun of it.

A gang of beautiful women ride the dusty range slinging sixshooters in this rollicking western. Available in an unrated version.

John Wayne in his last film appearance stars as famed gunfighter J.J. Brooks. After learning from Dr. Hostetler James Stewart that he's dying of stomach cancer and has no more than two months to live he moves into a boarding house in Carson City run by Bond Rogers Lauren Bacall and her son Gillom Ron Howard to die quietly. But when word gets around that the old gunslinger is in town curiosity seekers come out of the woodwork to get a look and the ridiculous local marshal Henry Morgan contemplates a showdown with the legend. Annoyed by the attention and realizing that if he waits long enough he'll die in great pain Brooks decides to seek out his enemies and go down with guns blazing. Yet he works to persuade the hero-worshiping Gillom to foreswear the life of violence he's led. Director Don Siegel fashions a poignant gracious farewell to the great star who like his character was dying of cancer as the film was being shot. A stellar cast which includes Western stalwarts such as Richard Boone Hugh O'Brian John C

Director extraordinaire John Huston brings to life the legendary hanging judge of the Old West Roy Bean a mysterious outlaw who sets up shop in a small town and establishes his own law. Paul Newman excels in his title role of His Honor. This western comedy scored an Academy Award nomination for its song "Marmalade Molasses Honey."

The outlaw-besieged mining town of Warlock hires a professional vigilante gunslinger named Clay Henry Fonda and his club-footed sidekick Anthony Quinn to clean up the streets and restore law and order. They tidy things up all right but their brutal methods call the whole concept of law and order into question. Eventually a reformed outlaw in town named Johnny Richard Widmark is elected sheriff and a showdown with Clay seems inevitable especially after a beautiful woman Dolores Michaels arrives in town accusing Clay of murdering her fianc. This character-driven thinking man's Western benefits from a cast of familiar supporting actors: Wallace Ford Richard Arlen Whit Bissell DeForest Kelley Bones from STAR TREK and Frank Gorshin The Riddler from TV's BATMAN. Director Edward Dmytryk successfully incorporates lofty issues of morality and masculinity into the traditional western trappings and the result is a classic of the genre both thoughtful and two-fisted.