The 10 Most Unique Westerns, Ranked (original) (raw)
Characters from The Good, the Bad, the Weird, Duck, You Sucker, and The Great Silence
Image by Federico Napoli
Published Nov 29, 2024, 7:00 PM EST
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There is a sense of variety to the Western genre overall, especially considering how it’s evolved as the decades have gone along, but it’s admittedly easy to think of a “traditional Western” and its accompanying conventions. If a Western is old-fashioned and conventional, it’ll have clear heroes and villains, a masculine/individualistic hero, possibly outdated or traditional values, and an emphasis on honorable violence winning the day.
And that’s okay, because these Westerns can satisfy and be appreciated for their time. But anyone after something less predictable may grow tired of such tropes and familiarity, which is where the following Western movies might be able to come in and provide something a little different. Not all of these are necessarily obscure, but each has interesting ways it subverts conventions of the Western genre, with these admirably unique Westerns ranked below, starting with the good and ending with the great.
10 'Mad Dog Morgan' (1976)
Directed by Philippe Mora
When you’ve got Dennis Hopper playing a bushranger in an ultra-violent and down-and-dirty Australian Western made during the 1970s, you can be fairly certain things will not be conventional. Such is (life and) Mad Dog Morgan, which is one of the most psychedelic, unsettling, and confronting Westerns ever made, and is out-there enough to only really qualify as a Western if you're willing to give the genre a broad definition.
Still, it takes place around the same time many traditional Westerns do, just in Australia, rather than the more expected American Old West. The protagonist is an antihero at best, and is shown trying to survive in an especially harrowing depiction of life in Australia during the middle of the 19th century. Mad Dog Morgan feels trippy in a very 1970s way, though, overall being an intoxicating, nauseating, and undeniably fascinating watch for those who like weird Westerns.
Release Date
July 9, 1976
Runtime
102 Minutes
Director
Philippe Mora
9 'El Topo' (1970)
Directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky
A man riding on horseback through the desert in El Topo (1970)
Image via ABKCO Films
Speaking of weird Westerns, El Topo is probably the most famous title within a Western sub-genre known as the acid Western. Like with Mad Dog Morgan, such Westerns emphasize surrealism and a certain psychedelic edge, with El Topo having an alarming and strange plot about one man journeying through a dreamlike desert with his son on a violent, mysterious, and continually confounding quest.
There is a sense of things always moving, if not forward, then in some kind of direction in El Topo, which helps it feel a little more than just episodic. But it can also be difficult to understand everything – or even just a good chunk of – the film after only one viewing, which is something that can be said about most of the movies Alejandro Jodorowsky has directed throughout his singular filmmaking career.
Release Date
December 18, 1970
Runtime
124 Minutes
Director
Alejandro Jodorowsky
Writers
Alejandro Jodorowsky
8 'Walker' (1987)
Directed by Alex Cox
Ed Harris as William Walker in the Western/historical drama Walker (1987)
Image via Universal Pictures
Boasting one of Ed Harris’s best (and most underrated) lead performances, Walker is a sort of Western that is inspired by real events while also breaking from reality in some places in fascinating ways. It takes place in Nicaragua during the 1800s, and follows a man named William Walker who leads his mercenaries on a mission to take over the country through a coup d'état.
Walker then becomes president, but the social strife caused by the whole ordeal ends up having nightmarish consequences for just about everyone involved. It’s a grim, angry, and politically charged film, and a truly admirable one because of how brazen it is, and how unwilling to take prisoners it proves to be, in effect. Walker is a tough and abrasive watch, but it’s striking and still just as impactful today as it would’ve been back in the late 1980s.
Release Date
December 4, 1987
Runtime
94 Minutes
Director
Alex Cox
7 'The Rider' (2017)
Directed by Chloé Zhao
Brady Blackburn (Brady Jandreau) rides a white horse in the early hours of the morning in 'The Rider' (2017).
Image via Sony Pictures Classics
The Rider has little by way of plot, but really doesn’t need it, owing to how effective and moving it is as a character study/slice of life sort of film. It follows a kind of modern-day cowboy and how he readjusts to life following a devastating accident that makes it significantly more difficult to be a rodeo circuit rider the way he used to be.
It’s a slow but immersive film, with some very naturalistic performances and a small group of characters who you come to care for and see as believable people as the film goes along. The Rider does require some patience to fully appreciate, but the way it unfolds and the overall gentleness/empathy of it makes it stand out against more typical Westerns, in turn also making it one of the best Westerns of the past decade or so.
Release Date
April 13, 2018
Runtime
103 Minutes
Director
Cast
Brady Jandreau
Brady Blackburn
Tim Jandreau
Wayne Blackburn
6 'The New Land' (1972)
Directed by Jan Troell
Image via Svensk Filmindustri
The second part of a duology, The New Land, is definable as a Western, while the film that came before it, The Emigrants, isn't quite classifiable as such. The Emigrants was about a Swedish family deciding to travel to America during the second half of the 19th century, and eventually making that daunting trip by sea, while The New Land is centered on them trying to settle into life on the American frontier.
It's this premise that makes The New Land feel like a Western, albeit a very dark one that’s mostly seen through the eyes of characters not used to life in America at this point in time. It’s a gripping second half for an overall mightily impressive epic, but it’s truly harrowing stuff, unapologetically grim, and uncompromising in its approach to depicting the harshness of life for many back at this time in history.
5 'The Hateful Eight' (2015)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Samuel L. Jackson as Major Marquis Warren wearing a cowboy hat and looking to his right in The Hateful Eight.
Image via The Weinstein Company
Crackling with the sort of dialogue and tension you'd expect from a Quentin Tarantino movie, The Hateful Eight sees him pushing the Western genre into even more unexpected territory than he did with Django Unchained three years prior. That film did push boundaries when it came to violence and the way it explored the racism found in America back during Old West times, but it was still somewhat conventional in its story (about revenge) and morality (it was pretty clear who was good and who was evil).
With The Hateful Eight, the narrative is told in a slower manner, it’s not clear exactly what’s going on until quite late in the film, and, befitting its title, no one is particularly nice, at least as far as the main characters go. It’s also shot in noticeable wide-screen while containing most of its action to a single interior, and the fact that it’s a film defined by coldness – both literal and figurative – also helps it stand out from most Westerns stylistically and atmospherically.
4 'Blazing Saddles' (1974)
Directed by Mel Brooks
Cleavon Little as Sheriff Bart riding a horse Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles
Image via Warner Bros.
Not only is Blazing Saddles one of the very best parody movies of all time, but there’s a strong argument to be made that it deserves to rank among the greatest films of all time, regardless of genre. It’s rather bold with its humor, but uses some of its shocking comedy to target the sorts of people and institutions that are fair game to target, and that ensures much of Blazing Saddles generally holds up, even if it has a reputation for being “the kind of movie you couldn’t make nowadays.”
Blazing Saddles sees Mel Brooks at his most anarchic and creative, and though it might not be the technical marvel Young Frankenstein was, it’s probably the funniest thing Brooks ever directed. Its non-stop humor and generally sound replication of some Western genre iconography make it a blast to watch. It’s probably the funniest Western ever made, and it stands out immensely because of that.
Release Date
February 7, 1974
Runtime
93 minutes
Director
3 'The Good, the Bad, the Weird' (2008)
Directed by Kim Jee-woon
The standoff in The Good, the Bad, the Weird
Image via CJ Entertainment
To address the obvious first, yes, owing to the titles being similar, it’s not too surprising that there are similarities between The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) and The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008). Both revolve around three entertaining and varied characters racing to find some sort of fortune that’s buried somewhere in the desert, but it’s the execution that makes the two differ.
Further, it’s the way that The Good, the Bad, the Weird focuses on over-the-top action that makes it feel particularly distinctive as far as Westerns go. It’s also a Korean movie set in Manchuria during the 1930s, which is an understandably novel setting, and it mixes its fantastic action set pieces with wild comedy, a sense of adventure, and a genuinely surprising finale that works much better than you'd expect.
Release Date
July 17, 2008
Runtime
139 Minutes
Director
Kim Jee-woon
Writers
Kim Jee-woon, Min-suk Kim
2 'The Great Silence' (1968)
Directed by Sergio Corbucci
Jean-Louis Trintignant standing next to a horse in The Great Silence
Image via 20th Century Studios
Released right near the end of the 1960s, and standing as one of the very best Westerns from that decade, The Great Silence pushes boundaries in noticeable ways, even by the standards of already subversive spaghetti Westerns that had proven refreshing alternatives to American Westerns. It is, quite simply, one of the coldest, harshest, and most brutal Westerns ever made, and is all the better for it.
It takes a hopeless situation, presents a way in which things might be resolved in a different Western, and then goes off in another direction altogether to devastating effect. The Great Silence might not be fun in the traditional sense, but it packs a massive punch, and has a truly eerie feel throughout. There is a feeling of dread that makes this film feel almost like a horror film at times, and, inevitably, that all makes it unforgettable.
Release Date
January 27, 1969
Runtime
105 Minutes
Director
Sergio Corbucci
Writers
Sergio Corbucci, Vittoriano Petrilli, Mario Amendola, Bruno Corbucci, John Davis Hart, Lewis E. Ciannelli
1 'Duck, You Sucker' (1971)
Directed by Sergio Leone
John H. Mallory (James Coburn) and Juan Miranda (Rod Steiger) ride alongside each other on a railroad while being followed by Revolutionaries in 'Duck, You Sucker!' (1971).
Image via United Artists
Sergio Leone made a series of progressively bolder and more distinctive Westerns in the years spanning 1964 to 1971, with Duck, You Sucker (sometimes known alternatively as A Fistful of Dynamite or Once Upon a Time in the Revolution) being the last of them, and the strangest. It gets more intensely psychological, and also functions as a bold anti-war movie with a plot that concerns the 1913 Mexican Revolution.
Two characters form an unlikely bond, but tragedies – both past and present – make them unravel in various ways, all the while the devastation of the war being fought around them keeps claiming victims. Duck, You Sucker, despite its B-movie-esque title, is a thunderously bleak and cynical Western, but it’s also totally engrossing and way too underrated. It deserves as much love as Leone’s other, better-known movies, and it’s hard to imagine fans of his other Westerns not getting at least something out of this one, too.