The 10 best westerns on Max, ranked
The Best Westerns on Max, not to be confused with the best Best Westerns on Max, of which there are none. You can’t stay in a fine budget hotel virtually. We’ll have to wait until the day we can upload our digital consciousness to streaming services. Now THAT’S frontier living.
10. The Ballad of Lefty Brown
Jared Moshe’s The Ballad of Lefty Brown is basically what would happen if Batman and Robin lived in the west serving out frontier justice, but then Batman were to suddenly die, and now an elderly Robin must hunt down his killers. Lefty Brown was always playing second fiddle to his recently deceased partner, but now he has to prove that he’s ready to be the star of the show. With guns blazing.
9. The Gold Rush
Charlie Chaplin can do no wrong. Artistically, that is. Morally, the jury’s still out in The Gold Rush, where Chaplin plays a hopeful gold miner trying to cash in on that sweet, sweet yellow rock in the far reaches of the Yukon. He’s gotta navigate the hard wilderness, form alliances with fellow miners, and learn to operate heavy machinery. While comedy antics ensue, the film isn’t afraid to highlight the more melancholy aspects of the pursuit of worldly wealth.
8. Cry Macho
Clint Eastwood’s Cry Macho is one of the former Western movie star’s many successful forays behind the cameras rather than in front of them. The film is about Mike Milo, former rodeo star turned horse breeder, whose old boss wants him to do one last job. His mission? Drag his former employer’s son back from Mexico. On the journey home, the dour hero and the plucky youth form a Last of Us style bond that helps them both grow into better macho men.
7. A Fistful of Dollars
The fist film in Sergio Leone’s iconic trilogy, A Fistful of Dollars introduced the collective pop culture consciousness to one of the West’s must enduring anti-heroes: The Man With No Name. Clint Eastwood’s most famous role is a gruff, taciturn gunslinger who’d rather shoot first and not ask questions at all. Caught up in a small town feud, the lone gunslinger plays both sides of the Hatfields vs. McCoys-esque rivalry to his advantage, and makes of with the moolah.
6. Appaloosa
Ed Harris’ Appaloosa is easily the most fun title to pronounce this list, but the old west town for which it’s named is anything but whimsical. Appaloosa is currently under the thumb of a ruthless rancher, and it’s up to lawmen Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch to lift that thumb with the long arm of the law. They inadvertently mix business with pleasure when a young widow ends up in the mix, leading to realize that their partnership is not as strong as they previously thought.
5. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Yves Simoneau’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee centers around an oft-appearing but rarely focused upon group of people in Westerns: Native Americans. While old school Westerns cast many tribes as antagonists or side characters, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee chronicles the story of Native American resistance to U.S. colonialism, culminating in the brutal Wounded Knee massacre resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Lakota. It’s a heartbreaking, painfully necessary addition to a genre that often attempts to bury the ugliest parts of American history.
4. For a Few Dollars More
The second film in Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy, For a Few Dollars More shows the return of the Man With No Name and his search for exactly what the title suggests. This time The Man has decided to team up with the man—U.S. Army Colonel Douglas Mortimer—in order to hunt down a deadly outlaw. Naturally, The Man ain’t in it for a share of the glory, but a share of the bounty. Despite its simple “grab the cash” premise, the film ends up unfolding into a complicated story of vengeance, where personal vendettas motivate the pursuit instead of noble ideas like justice. There ain’t no justice in the West, ‘pard. Only gettin’ even.
3. The Shooting
Monte Hellman’s The Shooting is what you’d call a “revisionist Western.” What’s that mean? It means that there ain’t no clear boundary between good guys and bad guys. No white hats to root for and black hats to shoot for. Morality is ambiguous, and people’s motivations are for the greater good of themselves rather than society at large. A mysterious woman hires two rough and tumble men to escort her through the badlands, but as they traverse the wilderness they soon realize that the woman has brought them out here not just for safe passage … but for revenge.
2. Slow West
John Maclean’s Slow West is a 2015 Western about a man who is pursuing something more noble than money or revenge; he’s pursuing love! Young Scottish hunk Jay Cavendish is searching the 19th century frontier in search of his lady love. How sweet! How romantic! How utterly hopeless! With him is a mysterious drifter named Silas, whose “I’m just along for the ride” attitude is just a cover for his deeper and more complicated motivations. This is also one of them there “revisionist Westerns.” What else would you expect from A24?
1. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The crown jewel of the Dollars trilogy, Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is arguably the rootin’-est, tootin’-est, gun shootin’-est, loot lootin’-est best Western movie to ever dust up the silver screen. The film revolves around the not-so-good Good: The Man With No Name; the totally evil Bad: a hired killer called Angel Eyes; and the endlessly entertaining Ugly: a Mexican outlaw named Tuco with a love/hate relationship with The Good and a hate/hate relationship with The Bad. Each man is on the hunt for lost Confederate gold, which would be way easier to find if the Civil War weren’t still raging. With jaw dropping cinematography and the greatest Western score ever made, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is quite simply the dictionary definition of the genre.
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