10 Best-Looking Western Movies, Ranked
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Typically, Western movies will look pretty good, even if the cinematography or style doesn’t really stand out or do anything particularly adventurous. This comes down to Westerns often having great scenery, since many Western movies take place predominantly outdoors and in visually appealing – and expansive – deserts, or sometimes snowier rural settings too, as a way to mix things up a little.
As for the visually stunning Westerns that go the extra mile, here’s an assortment of them, including both classic Westerns and a few more contemporary ones as well. Plenty of these are also great for reasons beyond how they look, but at least for now, what matters is how they present themselves, even if that might sound a bit shallow. Colors pretty. Scenery cool. Horizon limitless. Desert deserty. Western look good. Mmm. Eyes happy. Movie.
10
‘El Topo’ (1970)
There’s a Western sub-genre called Acid Westerns, and El Topo is probably the best example of that sort of film, and it means what you’d expect. Acid Westerns get particularly weird, and sort of feel like trips, or, at the very least, fever dreams. The typical Western iconography is there, but it’s more psychedelic than usual, and the sorts of characters and things you’d expect to see are somewhat intact, but distorted.
That’s all to say that a movie like El Topo probably won’t be for everyone, and it’s hard to break down exactly what happens beyond saying it’s about a man and his son going on a bizarre journey through an increasingly deranged desert. It’s impressive at times and kind of infuriating/questionable at other points, but it’s hard to deny how visually bold El Topo looks, as the aesthetics here are likely to stick in one’s mind long after it’s over.
9
‘Jeremiah Johnson’ (1972)
Robert Redford was a famously good-looking actor, but that’s not the reason Jeremiah Johnson is in this ranking. Truth be told, Redford actually looks a whole lot more rugged than usual, and less conventionally handsome than usual, since the titular character he plays lives as a hermit. Also, he lives in rough/snowy conditions, which necessitates him keeping his beard and hair long, with his clothing often being thick and unflattering, too.
Instead, it’s the scenery that makes Jeremiah Johnson stand out visually most of all, because they really spared no expense in having this shot on location, and in so many different locations, too. Beyond giving the viewer a lot to look at, this choice also adds to the authenticity of Jeremiah Johnson, since so much of the film really does feel like watching Robert Redford genuinely living out in the wild and trying to survive a variety of things.
8
‘Django Unchained’ (2012)
Quentin Tarantino’s 1990s filmmaking efforts usually looked pretty good, and were all filmed stylishly, but Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown aren’t necessarily best known for looking stunning, you know? They’re still great movies, but in the 2000s, Tarantino did start getting a little more adventurous with how his films looked, and what genres he was willing to tackle, too, as demonstrated by Kill Bill: Vol. 1 being particularly action-packed and relentless with its style.
Django Unchained has a narrative revolving around a quest for vengeance that allows a good deal of space to be covered by the two lead characters.
Maybe Django Unchained is slightly more restrained, but it still goes pretty big, all things considered, and it has a narrative revolving around a quest for vengeance that allows a good deal of space to be covered by the two lead characters. Also, the main shootout in this film is oddly dazzling on a visual front, and certainly vivid, with all the exaggerated blood spurts and scenery being blown to absolute bits.
7
‘The Great Silence’ (1968)
As a Western, The Great Silence stands out, owing to how intimate so much of it is. There’s not much by way of adventuring or travel here, since so much of the film revolves around a single small town and a drawn-out conflict that plays out there. In the town, there’s a gunslinger desperately trying to protect a group of people, some of them outlaws, with the antagonists being a group of bounty hunters.
It’s also a bit more morally complex than most Westerns, with the good guys not necessarily being purely good, but seeming that way because the villains are so detestable. Though it’s an almost claustrophobic movie at times, and is undeniably dark, The Great Silence also makes an impression visually, with it being one of the best snowy Westerns ever made, right up there with another Western – this one from 2015 – that’s about to be mentioned… right about… now:
6
‘The Revenant’ (2015)
There’s a fight for survival in the wilderness throughout The Revenant that is a little reminiscent of Jeremiah Johnson, but this 2015 film is also more brutal and puts revenge at the forefront of its narrative (though, to be fair, Jeremiah Johnson wasn’t without its narrative beats that concerned vengeance). The Revenant stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a man who’s lost everything and is then left for dead, and so he becomes almost possessed by a desire to do nothing more than endure and enact bloody vengeance on those who’ve wronged him.
Also, this plays out across a fairly long runtime, making The Revenant an epic, and a pretty intense one at that. Some of it’s not at all nice to look at, given the visceral violence, which is fairly frequent, but the scenery is often gorgeous. Once more, you can connect it to Jeremiah Johnson to some extent, as The Revenant also feels like real locations were highlighted, and that, once more, naturally adds to how grounded and believable so much of it feels.
5
‘Giant’ (1956)
Giant is one of the biggest Westerns out there, probably being more of a drama/epic than a Western, but it gets to be a few things at once since it runs for well over three hours and certainly has the room to get ambitious. It’s got a large cast and plays out over multiple years, with the main conflict being a romantic rivalry that also concerns the ownership of oil-rich land as time goes on.
There’s a bit more to Giant than just melodrama, but as a melodrama with a Western setting, it works well, and looks great throughout. Of course, some might argue it’s not a true Western, owing to its story starting in the 1920s and ending in the 1940s, with most traditional Westerns being set during Old West times (sometimes recognized as ending in the early 1910s, and sometimes either a bit earlier or later), but still, Giant fits into the genre broadly, and looks amazing, so that’s that.
4
‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’ (2007)
In The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Brad Pitt plays Jesse James, and you won’t be surprised about what happens to him, thanks to that title. Pitt’s great, and having him not stick around for the whole movie is a bit of a strange decision at first, but The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford does reveal itself to be more about Robert Ford, played by Casey Affleck, and how he fails to emerge from the shadow of Jesse James, even after killing him.
Or maybe even especially after killing him, since the death makes Jesse James even more well-known. It’s an interesting look at jealousy, death, legacy, and various other things, all the while also being an absolutely stunning movie to look at, largely thanks to the pretty-much-always great Roger Deakins doing some of his best-ever work as a cinematographer here.
3
‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ (1966)
Since it’s an absolute all-timer of an epic, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly unsurprisingly looks amazing for pretty much its entire duration. Also, given that duration is close to three hours, that’s impressive/saying quite a lot. Narratively, though, it’s not too complicated, since the three characters alluded to in the title basically compete with each other to find a hidden stash of gold somewhere out in the vast desert.
Also, the Civil War is being fought around them, but they don’t really care, because they like gooooold. Nothing seemed off limits for Sergio Leone to shoot in gorgeous wide-screen here, with the scope being grander than his other two Westerns made before The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (which also starred Clint Eastwood), and it’s worth noting that the film also sounds as good as it looks, thanks to what might well be Ennio Morricone’s most iconic score.
2
‘The Searchers’ (1956)
Apologies for only featuring one John Wayne movie here, but at least it’s The Searchers, which is perhaps the best Western he ever starred in, and also is probably the best John Ford ever directed, too. With the technology and equipment available in the 1950s, it’s hard to imagine a Western from this era conceivably looking better than The Searchers, which really pops visually thanks to its bold use of colors and frequent emphasizing of expansive desert landscapes.
Also, in other ways, The Searchers is a classic Western, telling a straightforward story but adding a ton of depth and complexity on a thematic front, with parts of it deconstructing certain Western conventions. Maybe not to the same extent as the spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s (like the aforementioned The Great Silence) did, but it’s still something, especially considering The Searchers stars perhaps the quintessential good old-fashioned American Western star, Wayne himself.
1
‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ (1968)
Going back to another Sergio Leone Western, Once Upon a Time in the West is about as good as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly overall, but it might well exceed that other classic when it comes to how it looks. This is a subjective sort of thing, and it’s difficult because both movies are all-out epics that look incredible pretty much constantly, but Once Upon a Time in the West is potentially ever-so-slightly more pleasing to the eye.
It’s a perfectly controlled movie, and maybe the slower pace at which the story unfolds allows all the exceptionally framed shots to linger longer, and therefore have more of an impact. How it looks is once more elevated by how its music sounds, but even without taking Morricone’s contributions into account, this is undoubtedly one of those “select any individual shot and it could be a painting” sort of movies, and as a result, it feels reasonable to call Once Upon a Time in the West the best-looking Western of all time.
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