World's Best Westerns

• The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez
• The Big Country *
• Broken Trail (mini-series)
• Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
• The Claim
• Dances With Wolves
• The Grey Fox
• Into the West (mini-series)
• Heartland
• Hidalgo
• High Noon
• Jeremiah Johnson
• Lonesome Dove (mini-series)
• McCabe and Mrs. Miller
• Open Range
• Shane
• She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
• Silverado
• The Three Burials of Malquiades Estrada
• Tom Horn
• The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
• Unforgiven

Runners-Up: Fistful of Dollars, The Good the Bad and the Ugly (wah wah wah...), The High Country*, The Long Riders, The Magnificent Seven, The Man from Snowy River, The Missouri Breaks*, Once Upon a Time in the West*, One-Eyed Jacks*, The Proposition*, Ride the Pink Horse*, The Searchers, The Shooter, Comanche Moon (mini-series) I included the mini-series here because they were classic westerns and should not be missed. Interesting how many were directed by actors: Dances and Range (both by Costner), Three Burials (Tommy Lee Jones), Unforgiven (Eastwood). Was there ever a villain as bad or as great as Jack Palance in Shane? You kinda had to pull for a guy that well-dressed, especially when Alan Ladd looked like an urban cowboy! Hidalgo, though not technically a western, was about men racing horses cross-country, close enough for me!

[update: 9.18.09]