'High Noon' works on many levels; the second-to-none screenplay, the subtle direction, the clock, Gary Cooper's Oscar-winning performance... It's about a small town sheriff who must basically stand alone to defend the people from a wild gang of outlaws, who have just been let out of jail and will arrive on the noon train. Although he does not have to, and the town does not deserve saving, Cooper decides that he will do the job that he was hired to do. A classic amongst Westerns, it strips the ge find out more...

Ford's revered Western, with the superbly haunted Fonda as Wyatt Earp, forced to put on his sheriff's badge one last time. Doc Halliday and the Clanton boys want to take over Tombstone, and only Earp can prevent them. An authentically constructed movie with a melancholy atmosphere, and the famous OK Corral shootout as its climax. find out more...

Leone's superb all-encompassing epic portraying the death of the mythical 'Wild West'. A superb cast, the collaborations of Bertolucci and Argento, and Morricone's brilliantly atmospheric score all add to the incredible style and weight of Leone's creation. A true cinematic masterpiece! A candidate for greatest movie ever made, if you haven't... then you must. find out more...

Running from the law after a bank heist in Mexico, Dad Longworth finds an opportunity to nick the stolen gold and leave his partner Rio to be caught. Years later, Rio escapes from prison and hunts down Dad, now a respectable sheriff in California and living in fear of Rio's return. find out more...

Frontiersman Vern Haskell (Arthur Kennedy) wanders the West obsessed with finding the culprits responsible for murdering his fiancee. His quest leads him to Chuck-a-Luck - the film's original title - a combination horse ranch and criminal hideout overseen by saloon chanteuse Altar Keane (Marlene Dietrich). Posing as an escaped criminal Haskell falls in with murderous gunslinger Frenchy Fairmont (Mel Ferrer) and gradually becomes indistinguishable from the men he is hunting. find out more...

An ex-lawman agrees to escort a shipment of gold cross-country, but runs into trouble when the men hired to help him turn out to lack the same moral backbone as their boss, and plot to steal the gold. A typically classy and visceral western from the master of the genre. Sam Peckinpah. find out more...

One of the all-time great westerns with John Wayne as the small town marshall struggling to hang on to a murderer, whilst holding off a posse of villains determined to rescue him, until the state magistrate arrives. Refusing offers of assistance from sympathetic townsfolk due to their age/sex/infirmity, the tension builds as the Duke is forced to swallow his pride, realising he needs all the help he can get. Excellently acted, with some superb set pieces and even a couple of songs from Ricky Nel find out more...

It's the off-season at the lonely Beauregard Hotel in Bournemoth, and only the long-term tenants are still in residence. Life is stirred up, however, when the beautiful Ann Shankland arrives to see her alcoholic ex-husband, John Malcolm, who is secretly engaged to Pat Cooper, the woman who runs the hotel. Meanwhile, snobbish Mrs Railton-Bell discovers that the kindly if rather doddering Major Pollock, played by David Niven, who won an Oscar for his performance, a retired officer who likes to find out more...

An archetypal classic Western, since remade countless times, with Alan Ladd superb as the world-weary gunslinger who rides into town and finds himself as the 'good guy' protecting the innocent from powerful malevolent forces. In this case the innocent are squatters determined to fight for their rights against a rancher and his gunmen; in one way this is the evolution of the west from lawlessness to settlement, in another the battle between big and small business. For Shane the options are clear, find out more...

One of the finest of the genre, this classic western follows two men whose initial contempt for each other's methods, one a hard man rancher, the other a naively honest lawyer, develops into respect when faced with the the town's local hoodlum. Tense, absorbing and not without wit. Superb. find out more...