The MoFo Top 100 Westerns: Countdown

→ in
Tools    





You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was one of the few John Wayne movies that I had seen prior to this countdown. It was one of the first few movies that I added to my list because it was already a favorite western, and it never dropped off. It ended at #14 on my list.



My list so far:
1) Oklahoma! (1955)
3) No Name on the Bullet (1959)
6) Support Your Local Sheriff (1969)
7) The Frisco Kid (1979)
8) The Gunfighter (1950)
9) Maverick (1994)
12) North to Alaska (1960)
13) The Bravados (1958)
14) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
16) City Slickers (1991)
17) The Hanging Tree (1959)
18) Rio Bravo (1959)
19) Winchester '73 (1950)
20) The Quick and The Dead (1995)
22) The Ox-Bow Incident (1942)
23) El Dorado (1967)
25) Incredible Rocky Mountain Race (TV Movie - 1977)
__________________
.
If I answer a game thread correctly, just skip my turn and continue with the game.
OPEN FLOOR.




__________________
"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra




“My name is Dances with Wolves. I have nothing to say to you. You are not worth talking to.”

Kevin Costner’s Academy Award winner Dances with Wolves makes an epic appearance at number seven. Whether you groove to the three-hour theatrical cut or the four-hour extended cut we follow Union Lieutenant John Dunbar (Costner) who makes a suicidal gesture at a Civil War battle in Tennessee but survives a hero and requests a transfer to the frontier. He is posted to the Kansas plains, the lone soldier there, where he makes contact with his neighbors the Sioux. He and the tribe slowly begin to communicate and trust each other including the medicine man Kicking Bird (Graham Greene) and his adopted daughter Stands with a Fist (Mary McDonnell), a white woman who was raised as one of their own. There are hunts, friendships, conflicts with the Pawnee and the U.S. Army, and Dunbar chooses his side.Dances with Wolves was nominated for twelve Oscars and won seven including Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, and Cinematography. MoFo wise Dances with Wolves was on twenty-eight ballots including two tenth, four eighth, four seventh, two sixth, four fifth, two fourth, and a second place vote finishing only two points ahead of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

Costner the star/director winds up with the two films on the countdown: Dances with Wolves (#7) and Open Range (#36).




Interesting...

I had Dances with Wolves on my list. Also at #7. And... I also correctly predicted its placement at #7 when I tried to guess the top 10.



For a time I considered Dances with Wolves to be the most notable film I hadn't seen. Then Miss Vicky nominated it for a HoF so I could see how great it was.

3. Little Big Man (#39)
4. The Ox-Bow Incident (#19)
5. The Big Country (#27)
6. The Wild Bunch (#9)
7. Shane (#43)
8. McC abe and Mrs. Miller (#17)
9. One-Eyed Jacks (#32)
10. My Darling Clementine (#44)
11. The Shootist (#57)
12. The Man Who Short Liberty Valance (#8)
14. Django Unchained (#12)
15. Dances with Wolves (#7)
16. For a Few Dollars More (#18)
18. Day of the Outlaw (#77)
19. Red River (#56)
21. The Cowboys (#50)
23. Open Range (#36)
24. The Furies (#84)
25. Winchester 73 (#53)



DWW was my #5


Such a good movie, others want to copy it.
Dances With Aliens, Dances With Samurai, Dances With Fairies...


Love the epic feel of Dances With Wolves, even though it's basically set only in 2 places, and has a handful of actors.



01. Young Guns (1988) --- 61st
02. There Will Be Blood (2007) --- 14th
03.
04. The Hateful Eight (2015) --- 11th
05. Dances With Wolves (1990) --- 7th
06. The Cowboys (1972) --- 50th
07. Django Unchained (2012) --- 12th
08. True Grit (2010) --- 22nd
09. True Grit (1969) --- 38th
10. The Quick And The Dead (1995) --- 42nd
11. The Sons Of Katie Elder (1965) --- 100th
12.
13. Wyatt Earp (1994) --- 110th (Holden posted a list of 101-110)
14.
15. The Magnificent Seven (1960) --- 24th
16.
17.
18. Westworld (1973) --- 69th
19. Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid (1973) --- 67th
20. 3:10 To Yuma (1957) --- 48th
21. Tombstone (1993) --- 28th
22.
23. The Big Country (1958) --- 27th
24.
25.



Never seen it, never really had any desire to see it

Seen: 58/94
My list:  

Faildictions (yee-haw version 1.12):
6. Rawhide



I did not have Dances with Wolves on my ballot. Wouldn't be on my personal Top 50, and not just because of the GoodFellas-related Oscar injustice (though that helps). Instead this is the only other of my choices, along with Lonely Are the Brave, not to make the collective list...



Zandy's Bride (Jan Troell, 1974) is the quiet tale of a late 19th Century coastal California rancher Zandy Allan (Gene Hackman) and his Swedish mail-order bride Hannah Lund (Liv Ullmann). He has bought her not with any allusions of love but as another hand to help him farm, keep his home, and bare him a son or two. He is expecting somebody younger but he soon learns that not only is Hannah a bit older but she is willful and insists on being treated with respect rather than as property. Tender feelings do eventually begin to blossom in the rough and anti-social Zandy. Eileen Heckart plays his mother, Sam Bottoms his brother, Harry Dean Stanton and Joe Santos are two of his few friends, and Susan Tyrrell the frontier fu*kbuddy he occasionally entertained before getting himself a wife. Troell, best known for The Emigrants (1971) and its sequel The New Land (1972) both starring Ullman and Max Von Sydow, paints a gorgeous, naturalistic, humanistic portrait of a story that in other hands could be a cheesy romance novel. Hackman is wonderful playing another stubborn, quick to anger character that you somehow sympathize with and Ullman is her usual mixture of grace and reality.

One other MoFo voted for Zandy's Bride but the collective 19 points were a far cry from making the cut.

That leaves only three more of my choices in these remaining six flicks.

HOLDEN PIKE'S LIST
3. The Wild Bunch (#9)
4. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (#17)
5. Little Big Man (#38)
6. The Ox-Bow Incident (#19)
7. The Ballad of Cable Hogue (#83)
9. Dead Man (#26)
10. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (#52)
11. Lonely Are the Brave (#104)
12. The Great Silence (#34)
13. My Name is Nobody (#79)
14. The Grey Fox (#66)
15. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (#8)
16. Hombre (#88)
17. The Big Country (#27)
18. Pursued (#73)
19. Jeremiah Johnson (#37)
20. The Outlaw Josey Wales (#13)
21. One-Eyed Jacks (#32)
22. Zandy’s Bride (DNP)
23. The Professionals (#45)
24. The Revenant (#25)
25. Support Your Local Sheriff! (#89)




Damn, I was really hoping for top 5.

Dances With Wolves is probably the only movie I've ever described as a masterpiece. The cinematography and landscapes are absolutely breathtaking. The score is wonderful. The performances are all very strong and the story is enthralling. I've loved this film since I first saw it back when I was 10 or so and despite the 3 hours of its theatrical cut (I still need to watch the 4 hour cut), I've never been bored with it. I voted for it at number 2 and never once considered putting it any lower.



My Ballot:
1. 3:10 to Yuma (2007) (#29)
2. Dances With Wolves (#7)
3. Open Range (#36)
4. Django Unchained (#12)
5. The Quick and the Dead (#42)
6. The Hanging Tree (#87)
7. The Hateful Eight (#11)
8. The Revenant (#25)
10. Dead Man (#26)
12. The Dark Valley (#92)
13. The Sisters Brothers (Just Missed)
15. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (#52)
17. Tombstone (#28)
18. Slow West (#95)
21. Rango (#41)
25. In Pursuit of Honor (One-Pointers)



The last movie on this list I have NOT seen, and thus could not have voted for . Sorry Miss Vicky.

Seen: 34/94
- Slow West (#95)
- The Big Gundown (#85)
- The Furies (#84)
- The Gold Rush (#78)
- The Shooting (#71)
- The Grey Fox (#66)
- The Great Train Robbery (#60)
- Meek’s Cutoff (#58)
- Red River (#56)
- Bone Tomahawk (#54)
- The Cowboys (#50)
- Rango (#41)
- The Gunfighter (#40)
- Open Range (#36)
- Hell or High Water (#35)
- The Great Silence (#34)
- The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (#33)
- Johnny Guitar (#30)
- Tombstone (#28)
- The Revenant (#25)
- Stagecoach (#23)
- True Grit (#22)
- Blazing Saddles (#21)
- The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (#20)
- The Ox-Bow Incident (#19)
- For a Few Dollars More (#18)
- McCabe and Mrs. Miller (#17)
- A Fistful of Dollars (#16)
- The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (#15)
- There Will be Blood (#14)
- Django Unchained (#12)
- The Hateful Eight (#11)
- Rio Bravo (#10)
- The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (#8)

My list:
1. There Will be Blood
5. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
6. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
7. McCabe and Mrs. Miller
8. Blazing Saddles
10. Rio Bravo
11. For a Few Dollars More
12. Johnny Guitar
13. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
14. Hell or High Water
16. The Revenant
17. The Lone Ranger
18. A Fistful of Dollars
19. Red River
20. The Gunfighter
21. Bone Tomahawk
22. The Hateful Eight
23. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
24. Stagecoach
25. Django Unchained



Since we're still speaking about Liberty Valance, I need to go back that rare moment of levity in the movie:
Heh. Remember Strother Martin as the captain/warden in Cool Hand Luke (1967)? Quite a change of his character...



Dances with Wolves is my #14. Besides being a beautiful and epic western. It’s also one of my most memorable theater going experiences. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is a solid and respectable western that didn't make my list, I have it at #38.

Seen list 63/94

My ballot 19/25:
  1. - Top 2
  2. - Top 5
  3. - 100%
  4. Jeremiah Johnson 1972
  5. - Top 3
  6. - 100%
  7. One-Eyed Jacks 1961
  8. The Gunfighter 1950
  9. Rio Bravo 1959
  10. The Outlaw Josey Wales 1976
  11. Young Guns 1988
  12. Tombstone 1993
  13. My Name Is Nobody 1973
  14. Dances with Wolves 1990
  15. The Big Country 1958
  16. The Ox-Bow Incident 1943
  17. Hell or High Water 2016
  18. Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid 1973
  19. The Hateful Eight 2015
  20. McCabe & Mrs. Miller 1971
  21. The Mercenary 1968
  22. The Great Silence 1968
  23. The Wild Bunch 1969
  24. Dead Man 1995
  25. - 0%



When this countdown was originally announced I was quite sure Dances with Wolves would be on my ballot. I had only seen it in theaters back in the day so I decided a rewatch was needed. Just for the heck of it, I decided to go with the longer director's cut. I watched half the first day... and I've yet to finish that viewing almost three months later.

It just felt like it's a 90-minute western that drags on for four hours. There's nothing in the first two hours that screams epic. It's more like a small and personal and light-hearted indie film that Costner for some unknown reason decided to present as a massive epic. I honestly don't remember if I liked it as a teen but I know I didn't like it now (and I did remember it being different).
__________________



Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
Dances with Wolves is my #5. Full of memorable characters, intense suspense and action, poignant interludes, believable examinations of loneliness and duty, and mutual respect between races.

As usual, I let the film do its own talking.



My List

1. Little Big Man
3. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
4. The Outlaw Josey Wales
5. Dances with Wolves
7. One-Eyed Jacks
8. The Professionals
9. Barbarosa
10. Red River
11. Oklahoma!
12. Hud
13. The Big Country
14. Giant
17. Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
19. The Ox-Bow Incident
20. The Ballad of Cable Hogue
22. Support Your Local Sheriff!
23. The Revenant
24. There Will Be Blood
__________________
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page



Dances With Wolves was the last film on my list. However, my list was incomplete (naturally. How the hell do I get to 25 westerns I even like?) and had it at #16. I did consider not putting it on my list because I've not seen it since the 90's, but I've seen it two or three times and liked it each time so decided to include it to pad the list a little more. I think I'd still like it if I saw it again.
__________________
5-time MoFo Award winner.