10 Reasons You're Wrong About Westerns

Some of the earliest films ever constructed were what would later come to be considered the first western films. In 1903, Edwin S. Porter's groundbreaking film, The Great Train Robbery, was released and essentially pioneered a great many cinematic traditions that remain valuable to this day, such as parallel action montages, outdoor scenes, and narration.

The final shot of the film, a cowboy looking directly into camera and firing his gun, has remained so burned into the psyche of the audience since that Martin Scorsese recreated the shot verbatim for the end of Goodfellas.

Ever since The Great Train Robbery, the western genre has remained an active part of American cinema, in one way or another. You can literally track the entire history of filmmaking simply by watching westerns and, quite frankly, seeing how they've been able to evolve over time is simply staggering.

When people complain that westerns are 'boring', they typically seem to argue that the genre is just more of the same. Take the time to see how the genre's changed with each and every decade, however, and it only becomes clearer as to why that statement just isn't the case.