The MoFo Westerns List

People wear cowboy hats?

I'll still wait a couple days to turn in my ballot, but in the mean time I'd like to say I'm so thankful this countdown is happening! I had previously stated in this thread that I "wasn't a fan of Westerns", and in fact in the Pre-30s countdown I had said "I don't like silent movies" either... maybe I should just keep my mouth shut, since after months of watching I consider myself a fan of both! Rather than silly cowboy gunfights and Native American stereotypes, I'm realizing that the Western genre can encompass so much more, and have just as much variety as any genre. Will be sending in my list pretty soon, but I never thought I would find so many I loved!

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ONE WEEK REMAINING! Send your ballots to me by the end of the day May 15, 2020.

All of the rules for submission can be found on the first page of this thread but remember your list of twenty-five titles must be ranked and numbered 1-25 with no ties. Films are awarded points as follows: 25 points for 1st place, 24 points for 2nd place, 23 for 3rd and so on, all the way down to one point for your 25th placed film. Please include at least each title's year of release on your ballot to avoid confusion with similarly titled films or different versions of the same material. Send to me via a private message with the title "[Your Username] - MoFo Westerns List".

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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

I got mine almost done. I'm just trying to get an order I can agree with.

https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/...estern-200864/

Because the writer Taylor Sheridan wrote three "modern westerns" that tried to deconstruct and modernize the genre

Sicario
Hell and High Water
Wind River

I should have my ballot in by the end of the weekend. I just have a couple of rewatches I want to do and then I need to cut down my shortlist and decide on an order.

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Annnnd. . .

Got my list and sent it in!!

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What I actually said to win MovieGal's heart:
- I might not be a real King of Kinkiness, but I make good pancakes

~Mr Minio

I'm having to cut some truly great westerns, it pains me to do that...If only I could send in a top 50 list or better yet a Top 100!

I FEEL your pain!!
TOO many go to the wayside

I have managed to make a preliminary list of 25 films now. I'm not sure I like how it looks but there's not much time to make changes

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Ballot sent.

I sent my ballot too. I don't want to switch the positions of few films anymore, and I don't think I'm watching more westerns before the deadline.

I have now received and tabulated thirteen ballots. That's more folks than could comfortably fit in a stagecoach, but not nearly enough. So keep 'em comin', MoFos! At this early point 147 different titles have already received votes and five have at least a hundred points.

Is Drugstore Cowboy considered a Western?

Thank you.

But it’s still a no on being a western or?

No.

Is that a serious question?

So you honestly don't see the differences between Hell or High Water, which has brothers robbing banks to save the family farm while being pursued by two Texas Rangers, and both Wind River and Sicario? Whatever the author's notion, look at the finished films.

I know "Neo Western", or whatever term one wants to use, is somewhat malleable. But the idea is that they use the conventions, archetypes, and themes of the traditional Western but taken out of the historical time period. Hell or High Water, if you substitute all the modern trappings like machine guns, cars, and casinos for late 19th Century ones, that plot is clearly a Western in its bones.

I personally don't see how the mysteries of John Sayles' Lone Star or Taylor Sheridan's Wind River use enough of the genre signifiers to be Westerns. I love both of those movies, but do not see them as Westerns.


But I am getting past the point of caring. Include whatever you want. Put Gone with the Wind and Avengers: Endgame and Drugstore Cowboy and Midnight Cowboy and Space Cowboys and whatever else you want on your ballots. You will likely be the only person voting for them, they have zero chance of placing on the collective list, and you're kinda just wasting our time. But hey, you'll make a point! Even if you're the only one who knows what that point is.

If you have seen so few Westerns in your life that squinting and including Wind River is the only way you feel you can get twenty-five titles on your ballot, please, do go ahead.


This was always going to be the inherent problem in expanding these lists past definable criteria like a time period and moving into genres. The world can't always agree on what exactly constitutes a Horror movie or a Western or a Sci-Fi flick. Just don't be shocked and appalled when something you knew damn well was iffy and only somewhere in the neighborhood of the line gets no other votes.


Do your best and turn in ballots, I says.

I haven't seen it. I didn't know if it was considered a modern Western or something.

Wind River was the first and only movie I have asked about in here. I only came back to the forum recently and haven’t been following actively in this thread. I didn’t see it mentioned and thought I’d hear if it was eligible since for example The Revenant is a eligible, which I personally don’t see as a western at all. Apparently that was “clearly” a western, even though it takes place in the snow, and Wind River was “clearly not” because it takes place in the snow. I don’t know. I just wanted clarification is all... the only official reply I got was “why would you consider it a western?” Honestly not a very serious answer to get when the movie has tons of articles online about it being a western. So all I wanted was clarification. Guess I got that now... kinda.

I will include Avengers: Endgame as well then. In Holden’s honor.

Sorry, I didn't get much sleep last night.

Snow does not qualify nor disqualify something as being of the Western genre. A couple classic Westerns, several Revisionist Westerns, and a handful of prominent Neo-Westerns are all set in snowy locales. From Day of the Outlaw to McCabe & Mrs. Miller to The Hateful Eight, while snow is a less common variable in the genre it certainly does not preclude. The Revenant is a revenge story set on the frontier. It is actually another retelling of the same true story that was the basis for Man in the Wilderness (1971) and in some of its survival scenes is akin to Jeremiah Johnson (1972). They're all Westerns.

Wind River is set on a modern day Native American Reservation, it deals with prejudice, and one of the two main characters does sometimes wear a Stetson style hat and shoot a gun. But structurally it is a mystery and a thriller. A damn good one. At this late point I don't want to fight about specifics. The ballots are due Friday.

A personal definition of this genre, or any genre, can be as narrow or as liberal as one wants. If one believes a stranger riding into a dusty town and having a shoot out in the saloon is the sum total of what a Western is that is absolutely fine, as limited as that may be, even if it essentially limits the field to "Gunsmoke" episodes. If somebody else's definition includes Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy that is equally valid, as wacky and frustrating as that may seem to a purist. But for this exercise we are trying to encompass the width and breadth of what this genre has inspired for generations of filmmakers and storytellers while agreeing on some parameters that give us a common range to hunt upon. If your personal definition of a Western doesn't include The Revenant or The Treasure of the Sierra Madre or Hud or A Million Ways to Die in the West you absolutely do not have to vote for them. But empirically they can be defined as Westerns.

Because definitions and sources differ I was trying to keep those titles that are less empirically of the genre up for debate. I think that has worked pretty well. Mostly. But there will never, ever be complete agreement. Which is what keeps movie fandom and this site interesting.


Everyone do their best.