10 Most Intense Gunfights In Westerns

It was only a matter of time before John Wayne made his way onto this list. In the role that earned Wayne the Academy Award for Best Actor, Wayne plays the one-eyed Rooster Cogburn, an aged lawman who is hire by the daughter of a farmer to capture the man who killed her father.

The film takes the pair on a wonderful and dark adventure through the American North-West. They come across some of the worst people the West had to offer, as well as some friendly faces. It is everything anyone could want from a western. But the big moment comes in the famous meadow gunfight.

Cogburn is up against four men on horseback. At first giving their leader a choice of either being killed there or surrendering to be hung later, the man retorts by calling him a "one-eyed fat man". An enraged Cogburn then charges the four men. The men have a pistol each, but Cogburn evens the score. He's firing while on horseback, not just with his revolver but with his repeater rifle, which he cocks after every shot by spinning the gun by its leaver.

It isn't the end of the film, but it looks like the end for Cogburn. As awesome as he looks, is there any way he will come out on top against four men? That question haunts us until the very last shot is fired. There was a fantastic remake of this film, but nothing in that masterpiece matches the intensity of this one moment.