While fans of the genre love antiheroes and rough-and-ready cowboys, the best Western movie heroes are what bring people back for more. Westerns were, for many years, a tale of good versus evil, although there was also a hint of colonialism in earlier films concerning Native Americans. However, the best heroes eclipsed that.

The best Western movie characters were men who emphasized doing the right thing as much as possible, and never allowing pure hatred, racism, or other poor traits to cloud their judgment. While a character like John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards was among the best in movie history, his atтιтude falls short of the traits real heroes need.

Destry, Destry Rides Again

Released in 1939, Destry Rides Again was an early Western movie role for James Stewart, who went on to have a career in which his characters were often seen as the best man in a world of evil. However, it isn’t just the fact that Stewart plays Destry that makes him a great hero.

Destry is a great Western movie hero because he subverts the expectations many fans had of the genre characters at the time. He rejects violence as the first resort, and won’t pull his gun and start shooting if there is another way to avoid the situation. In fact, Destry is a lawman who doesn’t even carry a gun at the start.

This also causes people in the town to underestimate him, making him an underdog who proves everyone wrong when he shows he might be kind and just, but is also willing to protect the townspeople, just not as a vigilante. He isn’t a coward; he just prefers not to cater to violence, although he can hold his own when needed.

Chris Adams, The Magnificent Seven

The Magnificent Seven had seven “heroes,” as the тιтle suggests, but this does not mean that the seven men are genuine heroes. Most of them are there for the money, as they protect the townspeople from the ruthless bandits that threaten them. However, of the seven, Chris Adams is the best hero of the group.

Played by Yul Brynner, he is an established gunfighter with a feared reputation. However, he doesn’t care about seeking glory for himself, and he is just there to do the right thing. He also knows that this is a suicide mission, but he realizes that protecting these people is the proper thing to do, and he is there for the right reasons.

He, along with Charles Bronson’s Bernardo O’Reilly (who seemed to be the only gunfighter to notice the struggles of the townspeople), is the one who really stepped up to help the people, rather than fight for selfish reasons. In the end, Chris Adams was a gun-for-hire, but he fought for the people and knew his role in the world.

Dan Evans, 3:10 To Yuma

There have been two versions of the Western 3:10 to Yuma, and while both were great, the 2007 remake was the superior version, a rare case of a remake surpᴀssing the original. However, both versions emphasized that a regular rancher named Dan Evans was the story’s greatest hero, sacrificing himself for his family.

Played by Christian Bale in the remake and Van Heflin in the original, Dan Evans accepted the job transporting a rustler named Ben Wade to the train leaving for the Yuma Penitentiary. He was doing this for money since his family was in danger of losing everything, and he knew this was a chance to get them out of a bad situation.

Through it all, Dan fought off Ben’s gang while also protecting the criminal, earning his respect. At the end of both films, Ben “saves” Dan, though in the remake, it ends tragically, allowing the criminal to become a better person after seeing what a great hero Dan Evans really was.

Manco, For A Few Dollars More

Clint Eastwood starred as Western heroes in the Dollars Trilogy, and in each film, his characters were distinct archetypes. The greatest hero archetype of the three movies came in the final one, For a Few Dollars More. That is because, in this film, Eastwood played Manco, a bounty hunter tasked with bringing down a dangerous criminal.

Manco went undercover as part of Indio’s gang, and he did everything he could to make sure as few innocent people as possible were hurt and to thwart the criminal’s main plans, as he tried to get into position to stop the criminal. It was a very different depiction of a bounty hunter in Westerns at the time.

Before this, it was almost like a bounty hunter was a job a gunfighter should be ashamed of. However, Eastwood portrayed Manco as an honorable man who sought to bring justice to Indio, not to gun him down and claim a bounty. Eastwood played bounty hunters and gunfighters in other movies, but this was his most heroic role.

Rooster Cogburn, True Grit

John Wayne appeared in more major Westerns than almost any other actor in the Golden Age of Hollywood, but not all his characters were honorable heroes. He had two of the more atypical Western roles of all time in Searchers and Red River, where his character was not only racist but also extremely violent.

However, his role in True Grit had some of the same deficiencies, yet he somehow managed to deliver one of his more heroic, yet flawed, performances of his career. Rooster Cogburn is a broken man, but he is willing to help a young girl find the man who killed her father to exact vengeance for her.

It was a nuanced role, where Rooster didn’t hide what he had done in the past, and the bitterness he holds for the world, but was still willing to stand up and help a little girl find closure. It is no surprise that this was the performance that won John Wayne his only Oscar win for Best Actor.

Wyatt Earp, My Darling Clementine

There have been many different versions of Wyatt Earp over the years. For example, Kurt Russell’s performance in Tombstone was a completely different Wyatt Earp than the version Kevin Costner played. In the end, Wyatt is a real-life character whose story has become mythological over the years.

However, while Kurt Russell’s Wyatt Earp deserves mention among Western heroes, if only one is listed, it has to be Henry Fonda’s version in My Darling Clementine. This John Ford movie mythologized Wyatt Earp like no other, and most of what Ford included was not historically accurate. However, his version of Wyatt was perfection.

Even if this was not how Wyatt Earp really was, Henry Fonda made the lawman the most honorable character in the movie, and his actions were always justified. Fonda is a great actor, and his portrayal of this legendary lawman remains the best in any film about the gunfight at the O.K. Corral or the Earp brothers’ exploits.

Cavalry Captain Nathan Brittles, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon

A classic story reveals that iconic U.S. military general Douglas MacArthur watched the John Ford movie She Wore a Yellow Ribbon every month. This is notable since there was no home video then, so he had to go to great lengths to see the movie on such a regular schedule.

However, this makes sense because John Wayne’s Western military character of Cavalry Captain Nathan Brittles is one of the best heroes in war movies or military movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood. The character’s hero’s journey falls into the trope of being about to retire and being sent on “one last mission.”

However, unlike other Wayne characters, Nathan isn’t there to fight or win a battle. He is there to stop the start of another bloody war between two warring tribes, the Cheyenne and Arapaho. He wants to stop the fighting, and when he succeeds, he proves what a real hero looks like.

Will Kane, High Noon

Not everyone is a fan of High Noon. John Wayne personally hated the movie and believed it was a “Communist” Western. However, that is a simplistic look at a more realistic Western film than most people were used to watching at the time. In reality, this was about a hero who knew he had to fight by himself and didn’t back down.

Will Kane is the marshal of a small town who is preparing to retire after getting married. However, when the man he put away in prison escapes and wants revenge, Kane realizes no one in the town will stand up and help him. This is where Wayne hated the story, but it is highly realistic and harrowing for the hero.

What makes Will Kane such a great hero is that he still stands up to fight for the town. When Kane wins the final shootout and then drops his marshal’s star and leaves the town as the people look on, it is something they deserved because this town didn’t deserve a hero.

John T. Chance, Rio Bravo

Ironically, John Wayne made Rio Bravo in response to High Noon. The Duke believed that a town would stand up to help their marshal if he needed it, and this is what the film displayed. In the setup, Sheriff Chance (Wayne) arrests a man and holds him until the authorities arrive to take him to trial.

However, the man’s gang comes for him, and Wayne has to fight for his survival in an onslaught on the jail, with a few people there to help him hold off the gunmen. Chance is never going to leave this town, and he is there as a hero to the people, even if they are not always there to back him up.

John Carpenter’s ᴀssault on Precinct 13 (and later Ghosts of Mars) were remakes of Rio Bravo, with all-out ᴀssaults and people fighting for their lives. However, John Wayne ensured that his sheriff was a genuine hero who remained loyal, even if people around him were not.

Shane, Shane

One of the best Western movie heroes ever to appear was Alan Ladd’s тιтular character from 1953’s Shane. Shane is a skilled gunman with a mysterious past who rides into town and gets a job working for a rancher. While there, he befriends the family and their young son, Joey.

This leads to a ruthless cattle baron demanding that everyone give up their land to him, threatening violence. While the people of the homestead are not fighters, Shane is, and he stands up to help the family preserve their home, even if he is a little more violent than they might be comfortable with.

Shane does everything he can to help the man who hired him, and possibly sacrifices his own life to ensure the family can live in peace. As Shane leaves, and little Joey begs him to return, it was the ultimate heroic ending, and Shane remains one of Western movies’ greatest heroes as a result.