The MoFo Top 100 Westerns: Countdown

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__________________
"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





Matching John Ford with five films in the Top 100 Sergio Leone adds to #90 Duck, You Sucker!, #18 For a Few Dollars More, and #16 A Fistful of Dollars with the top two Westerns as voted by MovieForums.com users with Once Upon A Time in the West and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly taking the second and first spots, respectively.


"Keep your lovin' brother happy."

After the success of the three Dollars pictures starring Clint Eastwood Leone was ready to never make another Western ever again. He began trying to adapt the gangster novel The Hoods. That would eventually become Once Upon a Time in America but wouldn’t be released until 1985. What he was being offered money to do by the American studios was of course more Westerns. When he found that Paramount would give him not only a big budget but Henry Fonda, Sergio agreed. He and two filmmaking friends and countrymen, Bernardo Bertolucci and Dario Argento, helped him write an epic that would call upon all of their favorite American Westerns like High Noon and The Searchers. What they devised had a former prostitute (Claudia Cardinale) arrive on the frontier to meet her new family only to find they have all been murdered. A gunman (Henry Fonda) has killed them for their land, land that a rich railroad tycoon (Gabriele Ferzetti) needs. Fonda and his men have framed a notorious local bandit (Jason Robards) for the killings, and all parties are shadowed by a mysterious stranger who plays a harmonica (Charles Bronson). Frank Wolff, Keenan Wynn, Lionel Stander, Jack Elam, and Woody Strode round out the main cast. Though shot mostly in Spain, the same as most other Spaghetti Westerns, several key sequences were filmed right in the heart of John Ford’s own Monument Valley, Utah adding to the blending of the Spaghetti and traditional Westerns.





"You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig."

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly was the grandest of the three so-called Dollars pictures, again following Eastwood’s anti-hero the Man with No Name and for the second time bringing along Lee Van Cleef, though this time he is not playing his Colonel Mortimer from For a Few Dollars More. Adding humor and energy is the wonderful Eli Wallach. It is technically a prequel to the other two films as they are both post-War stories and we see Eastwood’s character find his iconic poncho toward the end of GB&U. During the Civil War the three men, all living outside of the law, individually learn of a buried box of $200K in Confederate gold and form uneasy alliances or try to outdo the others in making their way to the treasure. Eastwood, who is called Blondie, Van Cleef, who is known by the misnomer Angel Eyes, and Wallach’s Tuco Benedicto Pacífico Juan María Ramírez all need information the others have which is the only thing keeping them from killing each other outright. They are ruthless, scheming, charming, and deadly and wind up impersonating officers and becoming involved in a battle for a bridge before the final showdown. Filled with a ton of dark humor and the most iconic of all of the recently departed Ennio Morricone’s scores, Leone’s gigantic production was a big hit, a fantastic culmination of the subgenre he made a phenomenon.



In the end the voting wasn’t even close. Once Upon a Time in the West was on an astounding forty-six ballots led by ELEVEN first place votes, more than any other movie! It also had six second, three third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, two seventh, two eighth, two ninth, and three tenth place votes. That all added up to 848 points, a decisive 48 more than Unforgiven. But as impressive as that was, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly was on fifty of the sixty-seven ballots, which unless my calculator is failing me is 75%! GB&U had fewer first place votes than OUATITW or Unforgiven with “only” seven but a stunning forty of its fifty votes were all top ten choices! Seven first place, four second, seven third, three fourth, six fifth, four sixth, one seventh, two eighth, two ninth, and four tenth place votes! That pushed it an extra hundred points higher than Once Upon a Time… and made it far and away the consensus choice as the best of the best Westerns! The Sons of Katie Elder squeaked in at #100 with 35 points on two ballots. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly bested it by 913 points. While only 49 points separated #13 through #7 the top six were in a different league. The top three of those were the elite choices, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly became untouchable.




The Sons of Katie Elder, North to Alaska, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Shootist, Red River, The Cowboys, El Dorado, True Grit, Stagecoach, Rio
Bravo, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Searchers, Two Mules for Sister Sara, Pale Rider, High Plains Drifter, For a Few Dollars More,
A Fistful of Dollars, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Unforgiven
and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

With two of the final three films starring Clint Eastwood that gave him eight on the countdown to John Wayne’s twelve. As a percentage of the total number of Westerns they made Eastwood had more hits in fewer at bats, but this exercise should reinforce why they will both forever remain the two icons of the Western genre.

In terms of decades the 1960s ruled with 25 entries, followed by 18 from the 1970s and 18 from the 1950s, 11 from the 2010s, 9 from the 1990s, 6 from the 1940s and 6 from the 2000s, 4 from the 1980s, 1 from the 1930s, 1 from the 1920s, and 1 from the 1900s.


Thank you again to everyone who turned in ballots, and to everyone who participated in this countdown portion, too. Happy trails, MoFos!








Between the Movie Forums Top 100 Westerns, the ten that just missed at #101 to #110, and the thirteen one-pointers that is 123 revealed of the 275 different titles that received votes. Here is an alphabetical list of the remaining Westerns that did not make the countdown…

100 Rifles (1969)
3 Bad Men (1920)
3 Godfathers (1948)
The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)
8 Seconds (1994)
Aferim! (2015)
Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013)
The Alamo (1960)
The Alamo (2004)
All the Pretty Horses (2000)
Along the Great Divide (1951)
An American Tail: Fivel Goes West (1991)
Annie Get Your Gun! (1950)
Apache (1954)
The Appaloosa (1966)
Appaloosa (2008)
The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975)
The Backwater Gospel (2011)
Bacurau (2019)
Bad Company (1972)
Bad Girls (1994)
Barbarosa (1982)
The Baron of Arizona (1950)
The Battle of Elderbush Gulch (1913)
Becoming Bulletproof (2014)
The Belle Star Story (1968)
Bend of the River (1952)
A Big Hand for the Little Lady (1966)
The Big Sky (1952)
Black God, White Devil (1964)
Blackthorn (2011)
Brimstone (2016)
Bronco Billy (1980)
Buck and the Preacher (1972)
A Bullet for the General (1967)
Calamity Jane (1963)
Canyon Passage (1946)
Cat Ballou (1965)
Cemetary Without Crosses (1969)
Cheyenne Autumn (1964)
China 9, Liberty 37 (1978)
Chisum (1970)
City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold (1994)
The Claim (2000)
Comanche Station (1960)
Compañeros (1970)
Cowboys & Aliens (2011)
Cut-Throats Nine (1972)
Day of Anger (1967)
Dead Birds (2004)
The Deadly Companions (1961)
Death Rides a Horse (1967)
Desperado (1995)
Destry (1954)
Destry Rides Again (1939)
The Duel at Silver Creek (1952)
Dust Devil (1992)
El Mariachi (1992)
The Electric Horseman (1979)
Eyes of Fire (1983)
The Fastest Gun Alive (1956)
Firecreek (1968)
Fort Apache (1948)
Forty Guns (1957)
The Four of the Apocalypse (1975)
Friendly Persuasion (1956)
Fury at Furnace Creek (1948)
Go West (1925)
Goin' South (1978)
The Good, the Bad & the Weird (2008)
Great Day in the Morning (1956)
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)
Gunman's Walk (1958)
Hang 'Em High (1968)
The Hangman (1959)
Hannie Caulder (1971)
Hell's Hinges (1916)
The Hired Hand (1971)
Hondo (1953)
The Horse Soldiers (1959)
Hostiles (2017)
How the West was Won (1962)
The Hunting Party (1971)
I Shot Jesse James (1949)
The Iron Horse (1924)
Jonah Hex (2010)
Jubal (1956)
Junior Bonner (1972)
The Last Train from Gun Hill (1959)
Legends of the Fall (1994)
Let the Corpses Tan (2017)
The Lone Ranger (2013)
Lone Star (1995)
The Long Riders (1980)
The Lusty Men (1952)
The Magnificent Seven (2016)
A Man Called Horse (1970)
The Man from Laramie (1955)
The Mask of Zorro (1998)
McKenna's Gold (1969)
A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014)
Monte Walsh (1970)
Ned Kelly (2003)
Nevada Smith (1966)
Noon Wine (1966)
Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003)
Outland (1981)
The Outrage (1964)
Prospect (2018)
Quigley Down Under (1990)
Rachel and the Stranger (1948)
Ramrod (1947)
Ravenous (1999)
Red Sun (1971)
Ride Clear of Diablo (1954)
Ride in the Whirlwind (1966)
Ride Lonesome (1959)
Ride with the Devil (1999)
The Rider (2017)
Rio Lobo (1970)
Salvation (2014)
Seraphim Falls (2006)
Sergeant Rutledge (1960)
Shanghai Noon (2000)
Silverado (1985)
Soldier Blue (1970)
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002)
Stars in My Crown (1950)
A Stranger in Town (1967)
Stranger on Horseback (1955)
Sukiyaki Western Django (2007)
Sweet Country (2017)
Tell Them Willie Boy is Here (1969)
They Call Me Trinity (1970)
They Died with Their Boots On (1941)
Thunderheart (1992)
Tracker (2002)
Trinity is Still My Name (1971)
Two Rode Together (1961)
Ulzana's Raid (1972)
Vera Cruz (1954)
The Violent Men (1955)
Viva Zapata! (1952)
Wagon Master (1950)
Way Out West (1937)
The Wild Wild West (1999)
Will Penny (1967)
Witchita (1955)
The Yearling (1946)
Yellow Sky (1948)
Young Guns II (1990)
Zandy's Bride (1974)
Zorro: The Gay Blade! (1981)

And as an interesting bookkeeping note (well, interesting to me, anyway) I preloaded a bunch of titles – maybe fifty or so – into the spreadsheet. Just pre-generated a bunch of supposedly canonical flicks that I figured would get at least some support whether they had much of a chance of making the Top 100 or not. Only four of those wound up with zero votes:

Duel in the Sun (1946)
Heaven’s Gate (1980)
The Tall T (1957)
The Tin Star (1957)





Once Upon a Time in the West was my top choice. To me it is not only Leone’s magnum opus but the height of the Revisionist movement and surpasses the classics and the neo-Westerns that came before and after it. From the scoreless long opening credit sequence with Jack Elam, Woody Strode, and Al Mulock waiting for the train and the arrival of Chuck Bronson’s Harmonica, then the slaughter of the McBain family – also done almost entirely without a score – until the great Ennio Morricone’s music comes bursting in as Hank Fonda’s Frank and his men clad in dusters emerge from the weeds to shoot a little boy in his face….just wow. And then the gorgeous Jill (Claudia Cardinale) arrives!

It does blend so many elements of classic Westerns but through the Leone lens and operatic style. It is two hours and forty-six minutes long, but like any great movie one loves it breezes by and as soon as I finish it I am ready to watch it again.

HOLDEN PIKE'S LIST
1. Once Upon a Time in the West (#2)
2. Unforgiven (#3)
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)
8. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (#4)
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)


So twenty-three of my twenty-five choices made the countdown. You may have noticed that when I posted about my own list the movie stills I used were bright and monochromatic. This was partially to signal that these were my personal thoughts and not the somewhat more objective information as the host. That is true but it was mostly so I could do THIS at the end…



We've gone on holiday by mistake
Well done Holden Pike on a tremendous countdown! I'm looking forward to working my way through all those I haven't seen yet, especially the ones near the top.
__________________



Once Upon A Time In The West was my other major brain fart as again I forgot to flag it with the 'Western' tag after rewatching it Again though my omission made absolutely no difference to its placing on the countdown. I did remember to tag most fillums though and The Good, The Bad And The Ugly was my #5.

Seen: 65/100
My list:  


Edit: Bumped the 'seen' count up to a slightly more respectable 65% after watching Pursued this afternoon.



Damn, I was really hoping to be wrong when I predicted The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly would be number one. I hated that movie.

I watched Once Upon a Time in the West several years ago and thought it was pretty damn good. I watched it again shortly before submitting my ballot and liked it a bit less but still liked it enough to vote for it at #16.

Great job, Holden! Thanks for putting in all the work to make this a wonderful presentation!

My Full 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)
9. The Tracker
10. Dead Man (#26)
11. Becoming Bulletproof
12. The Dark Valley (#92)
13. The Sisters Brothers (Just Missed)
14. Aferim!
15. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (#52)
16. Once Upon a Time in the West (#2)
17. Tombstone (#28)
18. Slow West (#95)
19. Hostiles
20. Silverado
21. Rango (#41)
22. The Appaloosa
23. Fury at Furnace Creek
24. Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
25. In Pursuit of Honor (One-Pointers)



All good people are asleep and dreaming.
My list

1. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
2. Unforgiven (1992)
3. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)
4. High Noon (1952)
5. The Big Country (1958)
6. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
7. The Bravados (1958)
8. Hud (1963)
9. Blazing Saddles (1974)
10. Pursued (1947)
11. There Will Be Blood (2007)
12. Winchester '73 (1950)
13. A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
14. The Unforgiven (1960)
15. The Furies (1950)
16. The Naked Spur (1953)
17. Jeremiah Johnson (1972)
18. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
19. No Name on the Bullet (1959)
20. Nevada Smith (1966)
21. Fort Apache (1948)
22. Duck, You Sucker (1971)
23. The Long Riders (1980)
24. The Ox-Bow Incident (1942)
25. Greed (1924)



Once again amazing artwork to close this wonderful countdown journey Holden, you're a real hosting boss!

I'll post my full ballot later today. Also who voted for Wild wild west?, reveal yourself



Incredible job Holden, even though I've been really busy recently it's always been a pleasure popping in here to see your posts.

My List
  1. Rio Bravo
  2. My Darling Clementine
  3. Pursued
  4. Stagecoach
  5. Johnny Guitar
  6. The Searchers
  7. El Dorado
  8. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
  9. Man of the West
  10. Rango
  11. The Hateful Eight
  12. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
  13. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
  14. Once Upon a Time in the West
  15. Ride Lonesome
  16. McCabe & Mrs. Miller
  17. Wichita
  18. Day of the Outlaw
  19. Dead Man
  20. 3 Bad Men
  21. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
  22. The Man from Laramie
  23. Winchester ’73
  24. Meek’s Cutoff
  25. River of No Return
__________________



The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was among the first handful of westerns I ever saw, and it was a favorite for many years. It doesn't excite me to watch it anymore so I didn't vote for it.

I did vote for Once Upon a Time in the West.

1. Unforgiven (#3)
2. The Searchers (#5)
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)
13. Once Upon a Time in the West (#2)
14. Django Unchained (#12)
15. Dances with Wolves (#7)
16. For a Few Dollars More (#18)
17.

18. Day of the Outlaw (#77)
19. Red River (#56)
20.

21. The Cowboys (#50)
22. High Noon (#6)
23. Open Range (#36)
24. The Furies (#84)
25. Winchester 73 (#53)



Great work Holden as expected, thank you for all you have done!



Between the Movie Forums Top 100 Westerns, the ten that just missed at #101 to #110, and the thirteen one-pointers that is 123 revealed of the 275 different titles that received votes. Here is an alphabetical list of the remaining Westerns that did not make the countdown…
Would you be so kind as to post a list of the final top 25 or 50 titles? Thanks. You did a lot of work on the Countdown, and it was very nicely done!



Welcome to the human race...
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West were my #2 and #3 respectively. I anticipated that their ultimate places at the top of the list were more or less a given, so I figured I'd give the edge to the decidedly different Dead Man just to keep it interesting, but they are all of inseparable quality as far as I'm concerned. In any case, these two Leone films make a strong duology that showcase the breadth of the genre. Good... plays like a borderline-comedic adventure that pulls an audience along for all kinds of twists and turns and spectacle while still acknowledging the need for a heart (however dark and dirty) to centre the titular bandits' antics. Once... turns that sense of epic spectacle on its head, consciously reinventing various classic tropes and sequences of earlier Westerns as a means of seeing Leone do his own true death-of-the-West tale (what I would've given to see him pull off his original plan to have Eastwood, Van Cleef, and Wallach play the guys waiting at the train station to really drive that home). They are simply undeniable.

Anyway, here's my full ballot. The only two that did not place were Sweet Country (which is an Australian Western I mentioned while talking about The Proposition ages back) and Red Sun, the latter of which I may have overrated but I'm working off ratings that could arguably use an update. Red Sun gets by mainly on the back of having one of the better star power premises I've ever seen in having Toshiro Mifune's Japanese bodyguard reluctantly teaming up with Charles Bronson's ne'er-do-well outlaw to chase down Alain Delon's suave bandit who has stolen the ceremonial sword that Mifune was transporting. I'm pretty sure Shanghai Noon unapologetically ripped this premise off and it's cool to see it played comparatively straight with some of the finest cinematic badasses that the mid-20th century had to offer. Might have to rewatch it to see if it holds up enough for a top 25, though.

1. Dead Man (#26)
2. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (#1)
3. Once Upon a Time in the West (#2)
4. There Will Be Blood (#4)
5. McCabe and Mrs. Miller (#17)
6. The Wild Bunch (#9)
7. Unforgiven (#3)
8 .The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (#15)
9. For a Few Dollars More (#18)
10. The Hateful Eight (#11)
11. Rio Bravo (#10)
12. The Proposition (#46)
13. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (#52)
14. Blazing Saddles (#21)
15. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (#4)
16. The Searchers (#5)
17. The Outlaw Josey Wales (#17)
18. A Fistful of Dollars (#16)
19. The Shootist (#57)
20. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (#33)
21. Sweet Country (Did not place)
22. Red Sun (Did not place)
23. True Grit [2010] (#22)
24. Red River (#56)
25. Walker (One-pointer)
__________________
I really just want you all angry and confused the whole time.
Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0



Sadly #1 went where I feared but as is life.

An excellent job of hosting Holden, as always, and while the films have been mostly awful, everything else has been great.
__________________
5-time MoFo Award winner.



Yeah, TGTBATU was my #1, and it was never close. I was able to slot it in immediately and never had to reconsider. I think I took awhile to see it, maybe about a decade ago, little longer. I was stunned by how modern it felt. So cheeky, so meta, so willing to lean into the fact that it was a movie and have fun with the medium, without trying to convince you it was really happening. As someone who saw a bunch of Tarantino first and then saw a lot his influences, it was really fun to see all the ways films like this clearly imprinted on him.

It's not perfect. The Civil War stuff feels kind of shoehorned in, particularly given how clever and funny it would have been to just toss it into the background and have them brush up against it incidentally and not really notice or care because they're too consumed in their own notions of wealth and revenge. But it's a minor complaint relative to the brilliance on display.



Obviously, Eli Wallach steals the show. My wife bought me a copy of his autobiography: The Good, the Bad, and Me, which is every bit as delightful as its title would suggest. Rest in Peace, Eli. I'll never forget the crazy, perfect look in your eyes when you deliver the line "He knows nothing of Tuco." You need the motion with it, especially because his chuckle at the end is tremendous, but:



Heck, Tuco was on the shortlist of names for my dog. And one of my cats (we decided to wait and maybe someday get three at once so we can name them Tuco, Blondie, and Angel Eyes).



And I will also boringly echo everyone who said Holden did an incredible job. Love the art, love how many submissions we got, love all of it. Great list!



... (we decided to wait and maybe someday get three at once so we can name them Tuco, Blondie, and Angel Eyes).
Perfect names if you ever get three rather standoffish goldfish



Would you be so kind as to post a list of the final top 25 or 50 titles?
The entire list was tracked HERE, the second post on the first page. Do you need something more than that? And I am sure that Yoda, busted wing and all, is readying the results into the Lists section of the site.