10 Most Ambitious Westerns Movies Ever Made
From astronomical budgets to bold new concepts, these are the Old West's most daring tales.
From the very beginnings of cinema, the Western has been an integral genre in the development of the medium and especially important to the rise of Hollywood. And despite its ebbs and flows, tales of the Old West have endured on celluloid for over a century now, always seeming to come back to one more stand off just when you think it's done for good.
Aside from countless classics, however, there are those pictures which approach the genre with a certain gusto; a boldness of concept or scale that makes for films as epic as the skyline of Arizona's Monument Valley. It is these ambitious projects that demonstrate the versatility and potential of Western stories. Some, indeed, are so ambitious they've never made it to the screen: the long touted adaption of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, for instance, which the likes of both Ridley Scott and James Franco have sought to bring to cinemas.
Where Blood Meridian has faltered, so many others have triumphed. From masterpieces of Old West action to lowkey contemplative tales, stories in mythical moods to studio-busting sweeping romances, these are the ten Westerns that weren't content taking the age-old approach to cowboys, bandits, stagecoaches, and the great frontiers.
10. High Plains Drifter
Clint Eastwood's first self-directed western is an ambitious and ambiguous piece of Wild West myth weaving that still strikes audiences with its unusual approach to the legends of the west.
Telling the tale of Eastwood's unnamed Stranger arriving in a small town with its own shameful past, the film is a perfect example of Wild West Myth, with flashes of raw violence and laconic humour balancing the overall paranoid atmosphere. It is certainly an offbeat western and in lesser hands might have made for a terrible piece of work, but thankfully that isn't the case: the film intrigues and then delivers the goods.
Despite being only Eastwood's second directorial work, the material is handled with the self-assurance of an experienced professional, managing to pull off the distinctly unusual blend of revenge western and ghost story, with a deft use of ambiguity such that whether or not you feel there's anything paranormal going on at all will be the main point of contention with your pals after a viewing. The picture would have been an ambitious undertaking for even the most seasoned filmmaker, never mind a then-newcomer as Eastwood was.