10 Westerns With 100% On Rotten Tomatoes

[GaryCooper]

Where's The Searchers? El Dorado is a decent Western but not in the same league as The Searchers. Let me guess why?

G.C.

[Detective Jim McLeod]

My top ten Westerns-

1. The Good The Bad And The Ugly (1966)
2. The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (1948)
3. Ride The Hight Country (1962)
4. Stagecoach (1939)
5. The Ox Bow Incident (1940)
6. Once Upon A Time In The West (1969)
7. The Searchers (1956)
8. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
9. My Darling Clementine (1948)
10. Wagon Master (1950)

[Intrepid37]

My top ten Westerns: Note - I haven't included any westerns set in modern times, such as Hud.

In Alphabetical Order:

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
High Noon (1952)
Hombre (1967)
Jeremiah Johnson (1972)
The Magnificent Seven (1960)
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Tombstone (1993)
Unforgiven (1992)
The Wild Bunch (1969)

Another Note: I nearly included a very frightening western called Bone Tomahawk (2015). It could possibly replace one of the 10 above - but it's almost as much a horror movie as it is a western. Scary.

[Dargo]

Where's The Searchers? El Dorado is a decent Western but not in the same league as The Searchers. Let me guess why?

G.C.

I agree with ya, GC. However, what would that guess of yours be as to why this is? I'm stumped for an answer here, as well.

And now and in regard to this list of westerns, I find it hard to believe that 'Old Yeller', 'The Shooting' and 'The Grey Fox' have apparently received a "100% Rotten Tomato score" and not that they're not all fine films.

(...personally, I can't imagine why I didn't see 'Unforgiven', 'The Big Country' and 'Destry Rides Again' being in THEIR place on this list)

[Intrepid37]

And now and in regard to this list of westerns, I find it hard to believe that 'Old Yeller', 'The Shooting' and 'The Grey Fox' have apparently received a "100% Rotten Tomato score" and not that they're not all fine films.

(...personally, I can't imagine why I didn't see 'Unforgiven', 'The Big Country' and 'Destry Rides Again' being in THEIR place on this list)

Rotten Tomatoes is a bull**** site - just as the opinions of "critics" are worthless.

The only opinion about a movie that has any real value to us is our own.

[Dargo]

And now and in regard to this list of westerns, I find it hard to believe that 'Old Yeller', 'The Shooting' and 'The Grey Fox' have apparently received a "100% Rotten Tomato score" and not that they're not all fine films.

(...personally, I can't imagine why I didn't see 'Unforgiven', 'The Big Country' and 'Destry Rides Again' being in THEIR place on this list)

Rotten Tomatoes is a bull**** site - just as the opinions of "critics" are worthless.

The only opinion about a movie that has any real value to us is our own.

I tend to agree with you here, Intrepid. And thus the reason I seldom if ever go to that movie site.

(...and with my primary online source for checking out what the general consensus might be about a film's quality being the IMDb website)

[Intrepid37]

(...and with my primary online source for checking out what the general consensus might be about a film's quality being the IMDb website)

Me too.

[Cinemaspeak59]

Great lists. I agree: don't let critics tell you which ones are best. I'd like to add The Westerner (1940) starring Gary Cooper and Walter Brennan.

[Belle]

And now and in regard to this list of westerns, I find it hard to believe that 'Old Yeller', 'The Shooting' and 'The Grey Fox' have apparently received a "100% Rotten Tomato score" and not that they're not all fine films.

(...personally, I can't imagine why I didn't see 'Unforgiven', 'The Big Country' and 'Destry Rides Again' being in THEIR place on this list)

Rotten Tomatoes is a bull**** site - just as the opinions of "critics" are worthless.

The only opinion about a movie that has any real value to us is our own.

Your final sentence is valid but critics do fulfil a necessary role, since most quality film-makers have always been eager to have their works 'critically acclaimed'. (Same for many other works of art.) The cognoscenti is important for very serious film-makers; alas, there are too few of them today (but we do have a wealth of cinema from its inception at virtually the touch of a button). Ergo, Hitchcock and Truffaut - just as one example. The autere existed purely as a creation of critical appraisal. Think Agee, Haskell, Kael, Sarris etc. These critics put their opinions into fine and often-demanding prose.

Over my 7 decades I've acquired a critic's eye to film appreciation; but it has been a long road, starting in my early teens and discarding many films along the way. Even with 'vintage' film I look at the credits, the opening scenes, the script, music, mise-en-scene and within 5 minutes I can tell if its a clunker. I'm too old now to waste my precious time on rubbish and I'll say that much modern film is rubbish. Why? There are really only about a dozen 'stories' in the universe (somebody once said) and each new narrative is a variant of one-such story. The degree of originality, talent and method of shaping a story is key to my enjoyment and appreciation of cinema. (And I've loved westerns since I was 12.) Today, with all the stories having been sold - and some exceptionally well - film-makers have resorted to CGI, tricks/effects and off-the-shelf acting for audiences easily distracted and without the requisite attention span to even enjoy and understand "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" - as fine a film as was ever made.

Think of an audience today sitting through a 20 minute ballet segment in "Carousel"!!

As to the western genre; decades ago, in a talk with my university lecturer, I suggested that westerns are essentially morality plays of the modern era. They served that function, created 'stars' and directors and told us all about ourselves. The themes were timeless and universal, although set in the USA (with some well-known exceptions). Any decent western which has survived in perpetuity will inevitably dramatize for audiences the limits of violence and what it does to the human soul and the community. In doing so - and in demonstrating the courage and vulnerability of the 'western' pioneers - the western also fetishized guns and violence which, as we know, has ongoing tragic consequences.

[Dargo]

And now coincidentally (and although the following link isn't about a western) look what just popped up on my computer's other screen set:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/j ... f1c9&ei=26

Btw and FWIW in these regards, over the years I've noticed after watching movies that had been previously reviewed by the critics and then also rated by the public, with few exceptions, I've found I've then tended to agree more with what the critics have thought about them than what the public had.

(...gee, I certainly hope that this didn't now make me sound like some sort of an "elitist"!) LOL

[Intrepid37]

Your final sentence is valid but critics do fulfil a necessary role, since most quality film-makers have always been eager to have their works 'critically acclaimed'.

Because it's a business and they want critics to review their films so as to bring in viewers.

I do read what critics say - but only after I've seen a movie. Never before. That way they can't plant their own petty attitudes, judgments and conclusions in my brain, potentially affecting my own impressions.

[Belle]

Your final sentence is valid but critics do fulfil a necessary role, since most quality film-makers have always been eager to have their works 'critically acclaimed'.

Because it's a business and they want critics to review their films so as to bring in viewers.

I do read what critics say - but only after I've seen a movie. Never before. That way they can't plant their own petty attitudes, judgments and conclusions in my brain, potentially affecting my own impressions.

Yes, of course it is business - they each have to earn a return on investment. This is a feature of all commercial cinema, going right back to the days of the 'mavericks' and I'm currently reading about Goldwyn. The latter wanted good quality films based on literary texts, even though some of them flopped at the box office. Goldwyn persisted, though, despite many losses because he had a philosophical view - and a financial one - about what good cinema looked like. And if these coalesced so much the better!! Goldwyn was a poorly educated (illegal) immigrant Jew who wore a literary manque as an early film entrepreneur. He believed it conferred a respectability and taste (his second wife Frances was important in influencing this) and critical acclaim for his films confirmed his belief in himself, which had been denied him through no formal education.

[Intrepid37]

Your final sentence is valid but critics do fulfil a necessary role, since most quality film-makers have always been eager to have their works 'critically acclaimed'.

Because it's a business and they want critics to review their films so as to bring in viewers.

I do read what critics say - but only after I've seen a movie. Never before. That way they can't plant their own petty attitudes, judgments and conclusions in my brain, potentially affecting my own impressions.

Yes, of course it is business - they each have to earn a return on investment. This is a feature of all commercial cinema, going right back to the days of the 'mavericks' and I'm currently reading about Goldwyn. The latter wanted good quality films based on literary texts, even though some of them flopped at the box office. Goldwyn persisted, though, despite many losses because he had a philosophical view - and a financial one - about what good cinema looked like. And if these coalesced so much the better!! Goldwyn was a poorly educated (illegal) immigrant Jew who wore a literary manque as an early film entrepreneur. He believed it conferred a respectability and taste (his second wife Frances was important in influencing this) and critical acclaim for his films confirmed his belief in himself, which had been denied him through no formal education.

Well, I'm not in the movie business - I'm just a viewer. So I don't spend time on, or place value on, what critics have to say. I like to have just my own experience of a movie.

Although I sometimes don't mind discussing it afterwards.

[Belle]

I always form my own opinion from experiences with movies, too, and have often been in disagreement with critics. The same applies to musical performance, plays etc. What I've tried to argue is that those who are engaged in the creative arts like to have their works positively acknowledged by critics who know what they're talking about. This is no way diminishes mine or your own enjoyment of them!!

In fact, film criticism is its own esoteric area of study - going back to Adorno, Horkheimer et al. in Germany.