I know there will be a ton of different opinions on this and the die hard John Wayne fans will be up in arms but Clint Eastwood is the king of western movies in my opinion. His string of man with no name "spaghetti westerns" have become the staple for all others to admire. The following movies in particular are among the greatest films all time, let alone greatest western film.
1. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
2. Unforgiven
3. Hang Em High
4. Pale Rider
5. For a Few Dollars More
6. Fistful of Dollars
7. The Outlaw Josey Wales
8. High Plains Drifter
9. Two Mules for Sister Sara
Only a few other western films come close to the perfection which is the man with no name trilogy, here is a short list of them. Rio Bravo is equal to anything made by Clint Eastwood so dismiss it here.
Tombstone
The Searchers
Lonesome Dove
True Grit (original & remake)
Wyatt Earp
Young Guns I & II
Open Range
The Quick and the Dead
I'm sure some of you will include other titles I have forgotten at the moment. Feel free to add to the list but not even John Wayne can beat Clint Eastwood when it comes to being the greatest western actor of all time.
I've always loved the anti-hero. And no one plays it better than Clint. High Plain is my all time favorite western. Revenge served cold.
If we are talking about hot cowboys, I just love Steve McQueen as Josh Randall in Wanted: Dead or Alive. That was the best TV series with cowboys. I also like Vincent Cassel in Blueberry.
John Wayne is and remains the greatest Western STAR of all time. Larger than life, his body of work speaks for itself.
Clint Eastwood, in some ways, is his worthy succesor.
But the Duke is the greatest and remains #1.
Dude, you forget the greatest Western ever made- The Wild Bunch.
I have to agree with this. And Wayne had the advantage of working with the greatest Western director, John Ford.
And all of Ford's cavalry pictures were in a class by themselves. The composition is still being copied by lesser directors.
Zorro has been filming in Monument Valley. I expect some of the shots will be direct copies of some of Ford's work.
overall in talent Eastwood wins, hands down: actor, composer, director, producer... he even sang in his first western flicker, but i don't think he wants people to remember that. <<hee, hee!!>>
Duke Vs. Eastwood
The Duke is great, don't get me wrong, but Clint always felt more real to me. I did like Wayne in the Searchers; he just jumps off the deep end. But that's me gravitating to the anti-hero again.
Wayne certainly is best playing a white hat (moral) character. But I just don’t find those characters very real. Give me Clint evening the score any day.
The Magnificent Seven is right up there and Shane is my all-time favorite.
I'd like to see Clint revive the western genre by directing DiCaprio as an anti-hero or just a bad guy like Jesse James. More entertaining concept than dreadful junk like Hoover or Space Cowboys.
John Wayne vs Clint Eastwood is right up there with the biggest questions in human film history. It even has a nice ring to it. I'm a fan of both of these men but I still say Eastwood gets the edge overall.
The Wild Bunch and Magnificent Seven belong on the all time list too.
Of course, Steve Reeves, aka 1958's Hercules, turned down the role that Clint eventually took as the Man with No Name. Reeves would have been fine, but his extreme physique might have been a distraction and become a component of the story, instead of the extreme gun play, which would have been unfortunate.
Anyway, didn't we all know Clint was going to be a superstar, when early in "Fistful of Dollars" he went out to request, nicely, an apology from the dudes for hurtin' his horse's feelings. Now that was bizarre enough. But when the baddies laughed, he slowly, slowly, slowly tipped up his cowboy hat to reveal that ultimate steely-eyed squint that froze the guys solid.
Wicked scene, the impending shooting spree notwithstanding.
John Wayne was the cowboy you could count on to rescue the girl and save the day, no doubt.
But younger Clint was the dude you really wouldn't want to mess with.
Even old Will Munny was a bad' un.
I have to say that 3:10 to Yuma with Crowe, Bale and especially Foster reset my expectations for the modern western. Love Clint, but really am enjoying what the next generation might do.
John Wayne and Clint Eastwood each represented the westerns of their times. Wayne was the good guy you didn't want to mess with. Eastwood the demon with a soft heart. Wayne was much more dominant as a star than Eastwood, Clint has proved to be an even better director than he was an actor. John Wayne was America, Eastwood the anti-hero, both represented manhood of the times they starred.
VICTOR MATURE as Chief Crazy Horse! (hehe... just having a little joke there)
VAL KILMER (spinning his mug) as Doc Holliday in Tombstone. Gotta mention him as I love that scene :-)
I actually wrote a cameo for the great CLINT in my screenplay --
-- 'THE SOUND OF NAKED SPURS'... which is avaialable here for free on amazonstudios.
Please check it out. It's pure entertainment.
Forget critique... read at your leisure x
Regarding western-style shootouts: although my favorite remains "The Wild Bunch", a more recent movie "Open Range" starring Kevin Costner and Robert Duvall had a really first-rate one at the end.
Jim:
I think that Open Range shootout was as close to what one would really look like as ever done on film.
That open range shoot out was one of the best ever filmed I agree. I still like the Wyatt Earp films and most of John Wayne's too but I still Take Clint Eastwood as the best all time cowboy.
