15 Underrated Westerns You Need To Watch

Best summed up as "High Noon" if Gary Cooper was also a baddie, this little seen classic from Andre De Toth is an efficient, moody character piece, with an excellent self-loathing performance from Robert Ryan. He plays Starrett, the iron-willed cattle baron and self-appointed leader of his community, where the homesteaders have come to detest him. But when the town is overrun by a group of deserters, led by the ailing Bruhn (Burl Ives), Starrett takes it upon himself to protect them.

Ryan was always best when playing complicated roles, and Starrett is a perfect example. He's arrogant and cold-hearted at the start, perfectly willing to gun down a farmer if it means that he can marry the man's widow. But Ryan perfectly conveys his character's inner vulnerability, and his petulance that the townsfolk don't like him. This complex characterization is what makes the story so compelling, especially as he attempts to save the town (and redeem himself) by leading the volatile gang into the snow-covered mountains for a tense climax.

Elmore Leonard wrote his fair share of westerns, but none resonate today in quite the same way as "Hombre." In the film, Paul Newman plays John Russell, a man raised by the Apache who has to travel to the nearest city by stagecoach. The other passengers are shocked when they find out about his heritage, and demand he sit outside with the Mexican driver (Martin Balsam). However, when the coach is held up and they are abandoned in the desert, the passengers turn to Russell to save them. 

Newman is effortlessly cool here, and never softens his character to make him more likable. He is a blunt, unsentimental man who sees through the hypocrisy of the pious Doctor Favor (Fredric March) immediately, calling him out on his "charitable" nature. Favor remains the most despicable character, and that's really saying something considering the caliber of the villains on display.

Richard Boone makes an imposing, charismatic baddie, and has strong support from Cameron Mitchell, David Canary, and Frank Silvera as his henchmen. Leonard's dialogue is quick-witted as ever — after Boone walks up a steep hill to deliver a threatening ultimatum to the survivors, Russell pipes up with, "Hey, I got a question. How do you plan on getting down that hill?" before mercilessly opening fire. So cool.

Arthur Penn's offbeat western is a hidden gem, with both stars playing outside their comfort zone to great effect. Jack Nicholson has never been more understated as the cattle rustler Tom Logan, while Marlon Brando is flamboyant as Robert Lee Clayton, the "regulator" hired to kill Logan and his gang, which is made up of some of the best actors from the '70s, including Fredric Forrest, Randy Quaid, and Harry Dean Stanton (in one of his most memorable and poignant supporting roles). Clayton is a terrifying figure — even when serenading his horse, there's something chilling about him, and the way he toys with his unassuming victims before killing them.

Penn takes pleasure in undermining the mythos of the traditional western. Logan is an old-fashioned western archetype, more honorable than the lawman on his trail. He criticizes Clayton for shooting his quarry from a distance, never having to look them in the eye, but Clayton takes pride in this (reflected later in the film, when he kills Logan's men when they are at their most vulnerable). Logan even refuses to kill Clayton when he turns his back on him. By the end, though, Logan descends to Clayton's level in a final showdown that is simultaneously audacious, anticlimactic, and entirely appropriate.

You could make the argument that all of Walter Hill's films are westerns (he certainly would) but he only ventured overtly into the genre a handful of times, to varying degrees of success. There's little doubt, though, that "The Long Riders" is the most successful of these efforts.

The film is best remembered for the casting of real-life brothers as related gang members — James and Stacy Keach play the James brothers, David, Keith, and Robert Carradine appear as the Youngers, Randy and Dennis Quaid take on the Millers, and Nicholas and Christopher Guest play the opportunistic Ford brothers. It's a proper family affair that informs the dynamic of the group. There's something about Randy Quaid turning his back on his real brother that just carries more weight. Towards the end the casting bears even more significance, as family loyalties lead to fractures among the gang. 

Hill gets the era perfectly right, with the shadow of the Civil War still looming large over the characters, and the climactic shootout is the most visually impressive since "The Wild Bunch," with disorienting, slow-motion action, and the impact of each bullet reverberating on the soundtrack.

Anthony Mann made several celebrated westerns with James Stewart, but "The Naked Spur" is one that isn't talked about enough. It's a film with a minimal cast, but tells its story on an epic scale, with some beautiful, expansive locations. Kemp (Stewart) is hunting murderous outlaw Ben Vandergroat (Robert Ryan) and is aided by grizzled prospector Tate (Millard Mitchell) and disgraced cavalryman Anderson (Ralph Meeker). However, once they capture the fugitive and his accomplice (Janet Leigh), he reveals that Kemp isn't a lawman but a bounty hunter, entitling the others to a share of the reward. 

So begins a morality tale of mistrust and avarice, as the characters squabble about their shares, and Vandergroat plants the seeds of betrayal in their minds. With only five named characters in the entire film, it's a proper character piece, and the way each of their backgrounds and personality flaws are revealed over the course of the film is masterfully done. The broody, vengeance-driven hero is one of Stewart's darkest roles, and Ryan is exceptional as the amiably malevolent killer who pits the others against each other, whispering in their ears and fueling their paranoia.

John Sayles' socialist drama barely qualifies as a western, focusing more on the infamous miners' strike of the title than any genre tropes. It even sits in an awkward place historically — it's filled with motorcars and machine guns, which don't usually crop up in movies like these. However, Haskell Wexler's beautiful cinematography, and the central conflict, is evocative of classic westerns.

In his film debut, Chris Cooper plays the idealistic union man who arrives in the town of Matewan to unite the disparate groups of miners being exploited by the coal company. As hired guns coerce and intimidate the workers and begin evicting anyone who stands up to them, the tension builds to an unavoidable confrontation.

The climactic shootout is breathtaking, as the townspeople leap into action. David Strathairn has never been cooler than he is as the blunt, taciturn sheriff who proves his mettle during the gunfight. Kevin Tighe is deeply unpleasant as the grinning heavy, and Bob Gunton plays a character even more loathsome than his warden from "The Shawshank Redemption." A significant and increasingly relevant film, "Matewan" remains criminally overlooked.

A favourite of Jean Luc Godard, who called it "an admirable lesson in cinema – in modern cinema," Anthony Mann's masterpiece should be as highly regarded as "Stagecoach" or "The Searchers," but is in reality rarely discussed, maybe because at its core it's a much darker film than it initially appears.

Link Jones (Gary Cooper) is the reformed outlaw on his way to hire a schoolteacher when the train he's traveling on is robbed, and he and a couple of other passengers are left to fend for themselves. As they walk to the next town, they find the train robbers hiding out (Jack Lord, John Dehner, Robert J. Wilke, and Royal Dano form just about the best gang of villains of any classic western), and Link's murky past catches up with him.

Beginning conventionally enough, the tone changes subtly over the course of the film, starting the shocking moment the comic relief character is ruthlessly killed off. From then on, there's a palpable sense of dread that builds until the final inevitable showdown, as Link is torn between his criminal past and the peace he has found in his new life. Casting Cooper as the protagonist is both questionable and pretty astute. He's clearly too old for the role — he's nearly 10 years older than Lee J. Cobb, who plays his uncle — however, it also seems apt that such an icon of the genre would play the lead in a film that feels so final.

One of Jim Jarmusch's most linear films, "Dead Man" is still full of his offbeat style. For once Johnny Depp plays it straight as Bill Blake, an accountant on his way to start his new job in the town of Machine. However, upon arrival, he finds there is no job, and after a confrontation that ends with him killing the son of Robert Mitchum's town boss, he ends up on the run from the law and bounty hunters alike, with only a Native American called Nobody (Gary Farmer) for company.

Depp's bewildered performance allows the supporting cast to shine, from Lance Henriksen's cannibalistic bounty hunter to Crispin Glover's decidedly odd train fireman. Meanwhile, Farmer is endlessly likable as the poetry-loving Nobody, and it's refreshing to see a depiction of a Native American character largely free of the stereotypes that pervade the genre. His performance is incredibly touching, as he constantly protects Blake, believing him to be the reincarnation of the classic poet William Blake (there are several nods to his work peppered throughout the film).

Blackly funny even if it's not an overt comedy, "Dead Man" is just as potent a deconstruction of the old west as any poe-faced revisionist western, punctuated by scenes of extreme violence and evocative symbolism. Neil Young's industrial soundtrack is incredible and washes over the film almost as much as Robby Muller's inky black and white cinematography.