5. The Searchers
This wouldn't have been much of a Western list without a John Wayne role and a John Ford film on it, so here we have both in the form of The Searchers. Containing what is perhaps the most iconic image of not just the genre but the medium of cinema itself, John Ford's 1956 tale of a Civil War veteran on the hunt for his captured niece is a must see regardless of whether you're a fan of the genre or not. The Searcher's placement of Wayne's morally questionable character, Ethan, on the fringes of the civilised family unit is superbly articulated in the above image of him standing on the veranda, surveying the frontier of The West that lies before him. Framed in the doorway yet ostracised from the space, he belongs to neither the landscape or the homestead. In Ford's deconstruction of the lone ranger, we are given one of the most profound and important dissections of American values found in the Western genre. John Ford is often referred to as the Orson Welles of the Western, watching The Searchers makes this comparison seem fairly reductive; like Welles, Ford is a superlative director who's beyond comparative analogy. The Searchers is a superb example of what makes the genre such a monumental and important part of cinema's history. If you haven't seen it, make sure you do.