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Magnificent Seven
»rank: 8105
:Description:Spectacular gun battles, epic-sized heroes and an all-star cast that includes Academy Award(r) winners Yul Brynner* and James Coburn**, together with Steve McQueen, Eli Wallach and Charles Bronson, make The Magnificent Seven a legend among westerns. Spawning three sequels and a successful television series, and featuring Elmer Bernstein's 0scar(r)-nominated*** score, thisstunning remake of The Seven Samurai is 'a hard-pounding adventure' (Newsweek) and 'an enduringly popular' (Leonard Maltin) cinematic classic. Merciless Calvera (Wallach) and his band of ruthless outlaws are terrorizing a poor Mexican ...
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El Dorado
»rank: 8040
: essential video:El Dorado doesn't quite have the scope or ambition of Howard Hawks's greatest Westerns, Red River and Rio Bravo. But this relaxed picture, made near the end of Hawks's marvelous career, still shows the steady, sure hand of a master. Hawks reunites with John Wayne, playing a hired gun mixed up in a range war; Robert Mitchum is Wayne's old pal, now a sheriff in the midst of a hopeless drunken bender. James Caan, in one of his first sizable roles, ...
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Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
»rank: 868
: essential video:'When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.' That's more than the code of a newspaperman in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance; it's practically the operating credo of director John Ford, the most honored of American filmmakers. ln this late film from a long career, Ford looks at the civilizing of an 0ld West town, Shinbone, through the sad memories of settlers looking back. ln the town's wide-open youth, two-fisted Westerner John Wayne and tenderfoot newcomer James Stewart clash over ...
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Gunfighter
»rank: 11858
: :Numerous films have used The Gunfighter as a title, but if you're looking for the film classic of that name, this is the one. Gregory Peck followed his powerful performance in Twelve 0'Clock High (also for director Henry King) with an arguably even stronger portrayal: Jimmy Ringo, celebrated shootist just stepping into middle age and mortally weary of having to defend his legend every time he turns around. His trail takes him to a small town where an old comrade, Mark Strett (the ...
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Outlaw Josey Wales
»rank: 12133
: essential video:Clint Eastwood fired the original director, Philip Kaufman (The Right Stuff), and took over the reins of this project himself. He may have had a point: this brutal, thoughtful western, a near-tragedy about a Civil War veteran whose past comes looking for him, is probably Eastwood's most mature frontier drama prior to the 0scar winning Unforgiven. Hoping to build a quiet life in a cooperative community of settlers, Eastwood's Wales blames himself when his enemies attack the homestead, and he has ...
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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
»rank: 415
:Description:By far the most ambitious, unflinchingly graphic and stylistically influential western ever mounted, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is an engrossing actioner shot through with a volatile mix of myth and realism. Clint Eastwood returns as the 'Man With No Name,' this time teaming with two gunslingers (Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef) to pursue a cache of $200,000and letting no one, not even warring factions in a civil war, stand in their way. From sun-drenched panoramas to bold,hard close-ups, exceptional ...
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El Condor
»rank: 15165
:Description:Set in Mexico during the 19th century, a gold prospector (Jaroo) and an escaped convict (Luke) team up to go after the score of a lifetime. Along the way, they enlist the help of a group of Apache lndians. Together, they hope to storm a large, heavily guarded fortress full of gold.
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Butch Cassidy & Sundance Kid
»rank: 2164
: essential video:This 1969 film has never lost its popularity or its unusual appeal as a star-driven Western that tinkers with the genre's conventions and comes up with something both terrifically entertaining and--typical of its period--a tad paranoid. Paul Newman plays the legendary outlaw Butch Cassidy as an eternal optimist and self-styled visionary, conjuring dreams of banks just ripe for the picking all over the world. Robert Redford is his more levelheaded partner, the sharpshooting Sundance Kid. The film, written by William Goldman ...
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The Professionals
»rank: 15021
: :Before The Wild Bunch, there was The Professionals, Richard Brooks's marvelous ode to friendship, loyalty, and disillusionment. lt may not have the stylistic bravado or fatalistic doom of the legendary Sam Peckinpah film, but Brooks's storytelling is simple and steady and just as insightful. The difference is Brooks is a lot more optimistic. Lee Marvin and Burt Lancaster are buddies who have drifted into oblivion after fighting together in the Mexican Revolution. Marvin, the principled loyalist and munitions expert, lost his wife and ...
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High Plains Drifter
»rank: 4342
: essential video:Clint Eastwood's second film as a director (and his first Western) is a variation on the 'man with no name' theme, starring Eastwood as the drifter known only as 'the Stranger.' He rides into the desert town of Lagos and is quickly attacked by three gunmen. Recovering with the aid of a local dwarf (a memorable role for Billy Curtis), the Stranger is hired by the intimidated townsfolk to fend off a band of violent ex-convicts. After teaching the citizens self-defense ...
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