The MoFo Top 100 Westerns: Countdown

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There Will Be Blood might be my favorite movie of the first decade of this century, but like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, I don't personally view them as westerns, so never considered either one. The Outlaw Josey Wales was my #4. If I had to describe what I like best about the movie, I'd say it was the humor and the lightness of the tone against a violent, epic backdrop. Of all Eastwood's westerns, it probably has the most complete and satisfying story arc for Eastwood's character, and is probably the most hopeful of his westerns.

My List:

3. McCabe and Mrs. Miller (#17)
4. The Outlaw Josey Wales (#13)
5. High Plains Drifter (#31)
6. Little Big Man (#39)
7. Jeremiah Johnson (#37)
9. The Big Country (#27)
10. The Shootist (#58)
12. The Ox-Bow Incident (#19)
13. The Gunfighter (#40)
15. 3:10 to Yuma (1957)(#48)
18. The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (#76)
19. The Naked Spur (#86)
20. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (#67)
22. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (#33)
24. Support Your Local Sheriff! (#89)
25. Johnny Guitar (#30)
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The Outlaw Josey Wales is my #4 and There Will be Blood is my #24. Read this crap if you have the inclination.
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Quite an epic post there, my man! I too liked "Josey Wales". Had it at #8. In fact it's time for a re-watch.

"Blood" was a great motion picture, one of the best in the 21st Century so far. I just couldn't pull the trigger as its being a western, even though it was set in the west. Funny though, I had Bad Day at Black Rock at #13 even though it's not a true classic western.



At least two more Eastwood's due. Although Wayne has more, Eastwood's films seem to have a higher rating. Is there a way to put that to a statistic when this countdown is over? (Anyone good with math anyway, sorry I'm horrid at it).
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Thursday Next's Avatar
I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a film I admire more than I actually enjoy it. Could probably do with a rewatch.

For A Few Dollars More was on my list at one stage, but got chopped in a late reshuffle. Probably should have kept it on. I liked it a lot more than TGTBATU. Haven't seen A Fistful of Dollars that I recall.

I just don't love B]There Will Be Blood [/b] the way everyone else seems to, so didn't vote for it.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford...yeah, even the title it too long...was my #22. It's just aesthetically pleasing.

McCabe and Mrs Miller was my #11. Again, it's the aesthetics and the atmosphere generated that I liked about it.

The Ox-Bow Incident was my #5. A bleak and powerful film with quietly powerful performances.

There's four more from my list I expect to show up at this point.




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Quentin Tarantino, a huge fan of genre film, has made two Westerns and they land back-to-bloody-back near the top of the list, just outside of the top ten, separated by only seven points. Tarantino’s worship of Sergio Corbucci is melded with his devotion to Blacksploitation cinema to yield Django Unchained. Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a dentist turned bounty hunter, frees Django (Jamie Foxx) because he is the former slave of his next targets and he would like an inside knowledge of their plantation and operation. Django joins Schultz in tracking and killing and they discover Django’s wife (Kerry Washington) has been sold to the cruel Calvin J. Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). Tarantinian carnage, dialogue, and fantasy rewriting of history commences. Using the theme song and a cameo for the star of the original Django (#64), the post modern insanity of Django Unchained was on thirty ballots; one first place, two third, two fourth, a fifth, two sixth, two seventh, two eighth, and a tenth among them.

For The Hateful Eight Quentin taps into Corbucci once again, this time it is The Great Silence (#34) by way of Agatha Christie. A stagecoach picks up a bounty hunter on a snowy mountain pass with a blizzard coming and the passengers end up in an isolated lodge with a handful of mysterious denizens. The eight are two bounty hunters (Samuel L. Jackson & Kurt Russell), a prisoner being transported (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a former Confederate General (Bruce Dern), the new sheriff of the next town (Walton Goggins), the town’s new hangman (Tim Roth), a cowboy (Michael Madsen), and the Mexican running the stagecoach stop (Demián Bichir). Not everyone is who they claim to be and you just know it’s gonna end real bloody. The Hateful Eight was on twenty-eight ballots with two first placers, three fourth, two fifth, two sixth, two seventh, two ninth, and two tenth.



And then there were ten.



My #4 and #7 in one shot


Two Tentin Quarantino masterpieces in one go is pretty good ... sadly neither making the top 10 though
I'd have hoped Hateful Eight would have broken the top 10.


What struck me with H8 was the use of the old Ultra Panavision 70 cameras and that he used Morricone's score from The Thing



01. Young Guns (1988) --- 61st
02. There Will Be Blood (2007) --- 14th
03. Definitely
04. The Hateful Eight (2015) --- 11th
05. Definitely
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. Maybe not now
13. Wyatt Earp (1994) --- 110th --- Holden's post said it just missed out of the 100
14. Hope so
15. The Magnificent Seven (1960) --- 24th
16. Definitely
17. Probably not now
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. Probably not now
23. The Big Country (1958) --- 27th
24. Probably
25. Definitely



Seen both. Like both. Only one of 'em made my ballot though.

Seen: 56/90
My list:  

Faildictions (yee-haw version 1.12):
10. The Sisters Brothers



Faildictions (yee-haw version 1.12):
10. The Sisters Brothers
Everyone should have noodled through what the Top Ten are gonna be....unless you are holding out hope that Cat Ballou is still showing. It's just a matter of order. These ten didn't quite make the cut of the Top 100.



These are your #101 through #110. Man of the West (1958, Anthony Mann) had 35 points, The Sisters Brothers (2018, Jacques Audiard) and The Sun Shines Bright (1953, John Ford) had 34 points, Lonely Are the Brave (1962, David Miller) had 33 points, Broken Arrow (1950, Delmer Daves), The Wind (1928, Victor Sjöström), and Wind River (2017, Taylor Sheridan) had 32 points, Dirty Little Billy (1972, Stan Dragoti) had 31 points, while No Name on the Bullet (1959, Jack Arnold) and Wyatt Earp (1994, Lawrence Kasdan) had 30 points each.

Enjoy.



I like both of the Tarantino flicks a lot but voted for neither.



However one of my picks was on that just missed list. Lonely Are the Brave placed at #104 on the collective list but I had it as my eleventh overall pick. It had two other votes, a twelfth and a twenty-second, but that was three points shy of cracking the Top 100. Which proves I run my lists honestly because it would have been super easy for me to swap it with something a few spots higher on my own list and push it over the goal line. But I resisted.

Lonely Are the Brave is a great movie. It’s so great that I know if I could have gotten four or five more of you who had never seen it to watch it ahead of the deadline it I am absolutely sure one or two would have included it somewhere on their ballots. Kirk Douglas stars as Jack Burns, a cowboy stuck in the modern world, traveling the vanishing countryside doing ranch work with his trusty horse, Whiskey. Burns hates fences and highways and rules. He drops in to visit on his friend’s New Mexico home to find out from his wife (Gena Rowlands) that he is in the local jail finishing up a sentence for aiding undocumented immigrants. To visit his friend (Michael Kane) and maybe even convince him to escape Burns starts a bar fight so he’ll be locked up. When the Police decide to let him go rather than incarcerate him he punches one of them to force the issue. He does reunite with his friend in the slammer but he cannot be persuaded to break out, having too much at home to live for. Now facing up to a year for assaulting an officer Burns does escape and sets off for the mountains on horseback. He is pursued by the authorities, led by the sympathetic sheriff (Walter Matthau) and including a sadistic guard he had a run in with in jail (George Kennedy) and a helicopter. A wonderful script by Dalton Trumbo, newly freed from the Blacklist thanks to Kirk Douglas and Spartacus, adapting a novel by Edward Abbey. It’s sort of a cross between First Blood and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Great flick, reportedly Kirk Douglas’ personal favorite of the many, many films he made!

HOLDEN PIKE'S LIST
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)
16. Hombre (#88)
17. The Big Country (#27)
18. Pursued (#73)
19. Jeremiah Johnson (#37)
20. One-Eyed Jacks (#32)
23. The Professionals (#45)
24. The Revenant (#25)
25. Support Your Local Sheriff! (#89)



Everyone should have noodled through what the Top Ten are gonna be...
The base Faildictions algorithm refuses to pick any movie that it has already selected. There'll be a few 'odd' predictions for what may reside in the Top 10, The Titfield Thunderbolt is yet to show up for instance ... there's good reason it's called Faildictions



I've edited my recent post with my list in it.
Damn, I had hopes that Wyatt Earp hadn't shown yet because it had broken the top 10.



Outlaw was my #6.

I've still not seen either of the Tarantino westerns. I can't say that that bothered by that.

Had I thought of/known The Wind counted as a western I might've voted for it.
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Thursday Next's Avatar
I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
I've only seen Django Unchained but didn't really consider it for my list. I should probably get round to watching Hateful 8 at some point.



I voted this #1.

I liked Django. But this was something different. And Samuel MF Jackson! Sweeeeeet!

And I see it's time for the big boys to show up!
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