25 Greatest Warner Bros Movies Ever

For a long while, it felt like the Western was a goner. After John Wayne had rode off into a dusty sunset lamenting (on screen) the death of traditional cowboy values and the world hurtling towards change that never suited the Old West, Hollywood seemed to fall out of love with the open range.

But then in 1992, Clint Eastwood directed the genre's eulogy, actually reviving interest in the classic tropes and spirit that was all but wiped out as Westerns developed into something else at the end of their heyday. It actually also borrows from John Wayne's ageing, redundant gunslinger category, meditating on the nature of age and heroism.

It's long, but it's deliberate and every stroke feels welcome, if not entirely necessary. The result is a stunning achievement in melancholy film-making that profoundly proved that at least some people could make them like they used to.