Western

When it comes to the pursuit of justice and righting the wrongs of lawlessness, nothing quite captures the imagination like a Western. Gunslingers in their stetsons, tumbleweed blowing across the scorched earth, outlaws being thrown out of saloons, bandits and bounty hunters, westerns have got it all. And if you thought the idea came out of Hollywood you would be mistaken. In fact, the first western movie ever made is widely believed to be Kidnapping By Indians in 1899 and it was made in Blackburn, in the UK. It may only be one minute long but it does precede The Great Train Robbery (1903) which at 12 minutes long was a huge hit in its day.

Created by Edwin S. Porter The Great Train Robbery follows a gang of outlaws who hold up and rob a steam locomotive at a station in the American West. They then flee across the mountains and are finally defeated by a posse of locals. It was the first of hundreds of westerns movies that graced theatres around the world making superstars out their lead actors. John Wayne's career flourished from his first films and lasted through to his last movie in 1976. Appearing in a total of 179 film and television productions he is an American icon and In Riders of Destiny (1933), became one of the first singing cowboys of film.

His breakthrough role came with John Ford's Stagecoach (1939) which Ford had trouble financing as John Wayne wasn't a big enough name at the time. It was a huge critical and financial success, and Wayne became a mainstream star. And he wasn't the only one. Clint Eastwood is also very much associated with the genre achieving a lot of his early success in the Western TV series Rawhide. While he also made Dirty Harry famous, his classic Westerns include Hang ‘Em High (1968) and Pale Rider (1985). Not content with all of that he is also an Academy Award nominee for Best Actor, and won Best Director and Best Picture for his Western film Unforgiven (1992).

You could be forgiven for thinking that Westerns belong to a bygone age but there has been a resurgence of late. It seems that viewers love a good show-down and like the creation of War movies, directors are happy to oblige. Django Unchained (2012) from director Quentin Tarantino is the highest-grossing western at the box office. Made on a budget of $100,000,000, it grossed $426,074,373 and stars Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christopher Waltz, Kerry Washington, and Samuel L. Jackson. Set in 1858, it follows Django, a freed slave, who with the help of a German bounty hunter sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal plantation owner in Mississippi.

Such was the success that three years later Tarantino was back again with Samuel L. Jackson with The Hateful Eight (2015). It even won an Oscar for Best Original Score for Ennio Morricone. And the modern-day interpretations of the classic western don't end there. Netflix created a huge hit in Godless, starring Jeff Daniels, Michelle Dockery, Merritt Wever, and Jack O'Connell which won three Primetime Emmys.

More recently, Netflix announced the release of The Harder They Fall, an American Western film directed by Jeymes Samuel, starring Idris Elba and Regina King. So the genre is alive and well with plenty of productions in the pipeline. If however, you cannot wait for the new stuff, you can always track out the classics across all of the major streaming platforms.