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Welcome to Rotten Tomatoes' list of the best-reviewed Western movies of all time, sorted by Adjusted Tomatometer. Whether you're an existing fan of the genre or just want to get in the mood for the next installment of Horizon: An American Saga, we've got you covered with the genre's all-time classics. The top results are here; for the full list, head over to Rotten Tomatoes.
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15. The Rider (2017)
Tomatometer: 97%
Audience Score: 82%
Synopsis: After a riding accident leaves him unable to compete on the rodeo circuit, a young cowboy searches for a new purpose.
Critics Consensus: The Rider's hard-hitting drama is only made more effective through writer-director Chloé Zhao's use of untrained actors to tell the movie's fact-based tale.
Starring: Brady Jandreau, Tim Jandreau, Lilly Jandreau, Lane Scott
Directed By: Chloé Zhao
14. A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
Tomatometer: 98%
Audience Score: 91%
Synopsis: Wandering gunfighter Joe arrives in the Mexican village of San Miguel in the midst of a power struggle among sheriff John Baxter and the three Rojo brothers. When a regiment of Mexican soldiers bearing gold is waylaid by the Rojo brothers, Joe is hired by Esteban to join the gang, but he plays one side against the other.
Critics Consensus: With Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo as his template, Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars helped define a new era for the Western and usher in its most iconic star, Clint Eastwood.
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Marianne Koch, Joseph Egger, Wolfgang Lukschy
Directed By: Sergio Leone
13. No Country For Old Men (2007)
Tomatometer: 93%
Audience Score: 86%
Synopsis: While out hunting, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) finds the grisly aftermath of a drug deal. Though he knows better, he cannot resist the cash left behind and takes it with him. The hunter becomes the hunted when a merciless killer named Chigurh (Javier Bardem) picks up his trail. Also looking for Moss is Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), an aging lawman who reflects on a changing world and a dark secret of his own, as he tries to find and protect Moss.
Critics Consensus: Bolstered by powerful lead performances from Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones, No Country for Old Men finds the Coen brothers spinning cinematic gold out of Cormac McCarthy's grim, darkly funny novel.
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson
Directed By: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
12. Winchester '73 (1950)
Tomatometer: 100%
Audience Score: 86%
Synopsis: Lin McAdam (James Stewart) pursues notorious outlaw Henry "Dutch" Brown (Millard Mitchell) into Dodge City, Kansas. There, in an effort to flush out the criminal, McAdam enters a sharp-shooting contest and wins the top prize: the eponymous Winchester rifle. Brown, desiring the rifle for himself, sneaks into McAdam's room and makes off with it. After finding the rifle missing, McAdam chases Brown across the state and toward an epic confrontation.
Starring: James Stewart, Shelley Winters, Dan Duryea, Stephen McNally
Directed By: Anthony Mann
11. Red River (1948)
Tomatometer: 100%
Audience Score: 87%
Synopsis: Headstrong Thomas Dunson (John Wayne) starts a thriving Texas cattle ranch with the help of his faithful trail hand, Groot (Walter Brennan), and his protégé, Matt Garth (Montgomery Clift), an orphan Dunson took under his wing when Matt was a boy. In need of money following the Civil War, Dunson and Matt lead a cattle drive to Missouri, where they will get a better price than locally, but the crotchety older man and his willful young partner begin to butt heads on the exhausting journey.
Starring: John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Walter Brennan, Joanne Dru
Directed By: Howard Hawks
10. The Searchers (1956)
Tomatometer: 87%
Audience Score: 88%
Synopsis: In this revered Western, Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) returns home to Texas after the Civil War. When members of his brother's family are killed or abducted by Comanches, he vows to track down his surviving relatives and bring them home. Eventually, Edwards gets word that his niece Debbie (Natalie Wood) is alive, and, along with her adopted brother, Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter), he embarks on a dangerous mission to find her, journeying deep into Comanche territory.
Critics Consensus: The Searchers is an epic John Wayne Western that introduces dark ambivalence to the genre that remains fashionable today.
Starring: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Natalie Wood, Vera Miles
Directed By: John Ford
9. My Darling Clementine (1946)
Tomatometer: 100%
Audience Score: 86%
Synopsis: In the middle of a long cattle drive, Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) and his brothers stop off for a night in the town of Tombstone. The next morning they find their cattle stolen, and one of the brothers is dead. Earp suspects the Clanton family, owners of the O.K. Corral, but wants his revenge to be legal. He becomes sheriff of Tombstone and forges a rough peace with an alcoholic gambler, Doc Holiday (Victor Mature). Earp also takes a liking to Holiday's former girlfriend, Clementine (Cathy Downs).
Critics Consensus: Canny and coolly confident, My Darling Clementine is a definitive dramatization of the Wyatt Earp legend that shoots from the hip and hits its target in breezy style.
Starring: Henry Fonda, Linda Darnell, Victor Mature, Walter Brennan
Directed By: John Ford
8. Unforgiven (1992)
Tomatometer: 96%
Audience Score: 93%
Synopsis: When prostitute Delilah Fitzgerald (Anna Thomson) is disfigured by a pair of cowboys in Big Whiskey, Wyoming, her fellow brothel workers post a reward for their murder, much to the displeasure of sheriff Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman), who doesn't allow vigilantism in his town. Two groups of gunfighters, one led by aging former bandit William Munny (Clint Eastwood), the other by the florid English Bob (Richard Harris), come to collect the reward, clashing with each other and the sheriff.
Critics Consensus: As both director and star, Clint Eastwood strips away decades of Hollywood varnish applied to the Wild West, and emerges with a series of harshly eloquent statements about the nature of violence.
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris
Directed By: Clint Eastwood
7. True Grit (2010)
Tomatometer: 95%
Audience Score: 85%
Synopsis: After an outlaw named Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) murders her father, feisty 14-year-old farm girl Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) hires Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), a boozy, trigger-happy lawman, to help her find Chaney and avenge her father. The bickering duo are not alone in their quest, for a Texas Ranger named LaBoeuf (Matt Damon) is also tracking Chaney for reasons of his own. Together the unlikely trio ventures into hostile territory to dispense some Old West justice.
Critics Consensus: Girded by strong performances from Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, and newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, and lifted by some of the Coens' most finely tuned, unaffected work, True Grit is a worthy companion to the Charles Portis book.
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper, Hailee Steinfeld
Directed By: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
6. Hell or High Water (2016)
Tomatometer: 97%
Audience Score: 88%
Synopsis: Toby is a divorced father who's trying to make a better life for his son. His brother Tanner is an ex-convict with a short temper and a loose trigger finger. Together, they plan a series of heists against the bank that's about to foreclose on their family ranch. Standing in their way is Marcus, a Texas Ranger who's only weeks away from retirement. As the siblings plot their final robbery, they must also prepare for a showdown with a crafty lawman who's not ready to ride off into the sunset.
Critics Consensus: Hell or High Water offers a solidly crafted, well-acted Western heist thriller that eschews mindless gunplay in favor of confident pacing and full-bodied characters.
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Gil Birmingham
Directed By: David Mackenzie
5. Rio Bravo (1959)
Tomatometer: 96%
Audience Score: 91%
Synopsis: When gunslinger Joe Burdette (Claude Akins) kills a man in a saloon, Sheriff John T. Chance (John Wayne) arrests him with the aid of the town drunk, Dude (Dean Martin). Before long, Burdette's brother, Nathan (John Russell), comes around, indicating that he's prepared to bust his brother out of jail if necessary. Chance decides to make a stand until reinforcements arrive, enlisting Dude, an old cripple named Stumpy (Walter Brennan) and baby-faced cowboy Colorado Ryan (Ricky Nelson) to help.
Critics Consensus: Rio Bravo finds director Howard Hawks -- and his stellar ensemble cast -- working at peak performance, and the end result is a towering classic of the Western genre.
Starring: John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson
Directed By: Howard Hawks
4. Stagecoach (1939)
Tomatometer: 100%
Audience Score: 86%
Synopsis: John Ford's landmark Western revolves around an assorted group of colorful passengers aboard the Overland stagecoach bound for Lordsburg, New Mexico, in the 1880s. An alcoholic philosophizer (Thomas Mitchell), a lady of ill repute (Claire Trevor) and a timid liquor salesman (Donald Meek) are among the motley crew of travelers who must contend with an escaped outlaw, the Ringo Kid (John Wayne), and the ever-present threat of an Apache attack as they make their way across the Wild West.
Critics Consensus: Typifying the best that the Western genre has to offer, Stagecoach is a rip-roaring adventure given dramatic heft by John Ford's dynamic direction and John Wayne's mesmerizing star turn.
Starring: John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Andy Devine, John Carradine
Directed By: John Ford
3. High Noon (1952)
Tomatometer: 94%
Audience Score: 89%
Synopsis: Former marshal Will Kane (Gary Cooper) is preparing to leave the small town of Hadleyville, New Mexico, with his new bride, Amy (Grace Kelly), when he learns that local criminal Frank Miller has been set free and is coming to seek revenge on the marshal who turned him in. When he starts recruiting deputies to fight Miller, Kane is discouraged to find that the people of Hadleyville turn cowardly when the time comes for a showdown, and he must face Miller and his cronies alone.
Critics Consensus: A classic of the Western genre that broke with many of the traditions at the time, High Noon endures -- in no small part thanks to Gary Cooper's defiant, Oscar-winning performance.
Starring: Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Katy Jurado, Thomas Mitchell
Directed By: Fred Zinnemann
2. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Tomatometer: 100%
Audience Score: 93%
Synopsis: In this classic adventure film, two rough-and-tumble wanderers, Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) and Curtin (Tim Holt), meet up with a veteran prospector, Howard (Walter Huston), in Mexico and head into the Sierra Madre mountains to find gold. Although they discover treasure, they also find plenty of trouble, not only from ruthless bandits lurking in the dangerous Mexican wilderness but from their own insecurities and greed, which threaten to bring conflict at any moment.
Dritics Consensus: Remade but never duplicated, this darkly humorous morality tale represents John Huston at his finest.
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt, Bruce Bennett
Directed By: John Huston
1. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1967)
Tomatometer: 97%
Audience Score: 97%
Synopsis: In the Southwest during the Civil War, a mysterious stranger, Joe (Clint Eastwood), and a Mexican outlaw, Tuco (Eli Wallach), form an uneasy partnership -- Joe turns in the bandit for the reward money, then rescues him just as he is being hanged. When Joe's shot at the noose goes awry during one escapade, a furious Tuco tries to have him murdered. The men re-team abruptly, however, to beat out a sadistic criminal and the Union army and find $20,000 that a soldier has buried in the desert.
Critics Consensus: Arguably the greatest of the spaghetti westerns, this epic features a compelling story, memorable performances, breathtaking landscapes and a haunting score.
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef, Aldo Giuffré
Directed By: Sergio Leone
