While classic Western movies may no longer be as popular as they were during their peak throughout the 1940s to the 1960s, it’s incredible how the genre’s style has been infused into countless non-Western movies. As classic tales of heroes and outlaws pervade cinema, it’s fascinating to note just how many things would not exist without the influence of classic Westerns. While some movies wear this influence on their sleeves, it’s a much more subtle comparison in other films.

It’s no surprise that Westerns have had a major impact on other genres, as some of the best filmmakers of all time grew up watching cowboys and bandits and have taken those tropes and cliches into their own work. From cult classics that cannot fit into any one genre to major franchises that echo the aesthetics of Westerns, the desert landscape of the Wild West and the individualistic charisma of its protagonists have had an undeniable impact on other types of films. With timeless themes and impactful ideas, plenty of non-Western movies still have a Western feeling about them.

10

The Equalizer (2014)

The Equalizer leans into the lone gunman Western trope

The lone gunslinger with mysterious motivations and a dark past has long been a trope of the Western genre and was powerfully utilized in The Equalizer, starring Denzel Washington. This updated adaptation of the 1980s TV series of the same name reunited Washington with the Training Day director Antoine Fuqua and was the star’s first foray into the world of movie franchises. With three movies already made, Washington’s portrayal of the former marine and reluctant hero Robert McCall provided the actor with his own icon hero, who echoes legendary portrayals such as Clint Eastwood’s The Man with No Name.

Although it may not be set in the Wild West, the world inhabited by McCall was no less chaotic as he faced off with a litany of criminals and outlaws in his pursuit of his own version of justice. As a character guided by morality, Washington’s portrayal brought to mind a modern-day vigilante sheriff who listened to his conscience rather than following the exact letter of the law. While Washington has been in genuine Western movies, such as the remake of The Magnificent Seven, The Equalizer stood out as having borrowed plenty of elements from classic Western movies.

9

ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Man (1995)

ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Man never fully reveals the truth of its Western-style setting

The icon of independent cinema, Jim Jarmusch, has never allowed himself to be pigeonholed into any particular genre, as his films utilize many styles to create a totally unique aesthetic. As a director who reflects American culture back onto itself, films like ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Man lean into Western movie tropes and cliches while also feeling original. With Johnny Depp as a Cleveland accountant named William Blake, ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Man is set in the late 19th century as this meek man is on the run after a killing and traverses a psychedelic landscape accompanied by a Native American spirit guide named Nobody.

Through black-and-white cinematography and an ethereal, otherworldly atmosphere, ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Man is a postmodern and poetic piece of filmmaking that leans into a Western style without ever fully giving over to it. This philosophical presentation of Americana was made all the more effective by the sparse soundtrack from Neil Young, whose improvised guitar sounds added to its unique feeling. While it’s never fully clear if Blake is ᴅᴇᴀᴅ and wandering the afterlife or if the setting is genuinely a strange version of the Wild West, ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Man is a film that audiences will ponder well after the credits have rolled.

8

Kill Bill (2003)

Kill Bill echoes the Western genre’s long history of revenge stories

With a lone, wronged protagonist, Kill Bill depicts a woman on an epic and bloody quest for revenge. Revenge has long been a standard set-up for Wild West stories and has served as the foundation of classic films like The Outlaw Josey Wales or True Grit, and director Quentin Tarantino imbued his two-part kung fu epic with these same themes. As a love letter to martial arts cinema, both parts of Kill Bill also leaned heavily into a Western movie style and aesthetic.

Kill Bill: Volume 2 particularly embraced Western movie tropes as the Bride’s (Uma Thurman) showdown with the тιтular Bill (David Carradine) felt akin to a classic Wild West standoff where only one could come out alive. Tarantino paid tribute to Spaghetti Westerns and the work of Sergio Leone through many of the visuals, much of the music, and several stylistic nods in Kill Bill. While Tarantino fully embraced the genre in films like Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight, Kill Bill was an earlier indication of the filmmaker’s love for this style.

7

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019)

El Camino’s man on the run story felt like it could come straight out of a classic Western

As a TV series exploring the criminal underworld within the barren landscape of the New Mexico desert, Breaking Bad always had a classic Western feeling about it. This became more pronounced as the seasons went on, and Walter White gained a reputation as a notorious outlaw who pulled off mᴀssive train heists and did not hesitate to kill anyone who stood in his way of creating an empire. While the series ended with one of the best TV finales of all time, Breaking Bad returned with the epilogue movie El Camino, which further embraced the tropes of the Western genre.

El Camino was released six years after the conclusion of Breaking Bad and gave audiences closure on the story of Jesse Pinkman after he was freed from the Brotherhood compound in Todd Alquist’s Chevrolet El Camino. With a desire to start a new life in Alaska, before Jesse can finally leave his dark past behind, he is forced to confront the welder who ᴀssisted with his captivity and takes part in a Wild West-style duel for a share of the money he helped discover. As a worthy farewell to Jesse’s character, El Camino appropriately echoed the show’s Western influences.

6

Mad Max (1979)

Mad Max’s dystopian version of Australia is as lawless as the Wild West

The dystopian action movie Mad Max was the inception point for a major movie franchise that continues to this day. From director George Miller and with Mel Gibson as the тιтular road warrior Max Rockatansky, the drought-ridden, resource-scarce landscape of The Wasteland was presented as a Wild West-style world where crooked outlaws and deviant criminals run rampant as society collapses around them. As a thrilling mix of action, sci-fi, and Westerns, the post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max stripped humanity back to its barest essentials.

As a depiction of Australia devolved into pure brutalism, Mad Max and its various sequels and a prequel have had a significant impact on popular culture and have remained popular to this day. The long-awaited fourth movie in the franchise, Mad Max: Fury Road, recasts Gibson with Tom Hardy and has commonly been ranked among the greatest films of the 21st century. As a highly stylized, genre-bending series with impeccable worldbuilding and a unique sense of idenтιтy, Miller was heavily influenced by Westerns when he envisioned Mad Max.

5

Serenity (2005)

Serenity is like a Western set in space

Joss Whedon’s sci-fi space Western series Firefly was notoriously cancelled after just one season and left hordes of disappointed fans crying out for more. This was at last achieved when the short-lived series returned for the feature film Serenity, a movie that maintained the series Western influences as its crew of fugitive freedom fighters traversed the uncharted frontiers of space and encountered many foes along the way. From corrupt political forces to rival bounty hunters, Serenity encapsulated al the cinematic stylings of classic Western movie tropes.

Even the Unification War that caused the crew of the Serenity spaceship and its Captain Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) to go on the run in the first place could be compared to the genuine American Civil War that informed countless Western movie narratives. Serenity maintained Firefly’s incredible characterization and strong writing to tell a thrilling sci-fi story that effectively critiques contemporary American society.

4

Badlands (1973)

Badlands’ outlaw couple brought to mind real life bandits like Bonnie and Clyde

Outlaws on the run have acted as a standard set-up for Western movies since as long as the genre existed, and Terrence Malick’s cult classic Badlands leaned into the well-worn trope. With elements of real-life figures like Bonnie and Clyde or the spree killers Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate (via Guardian), Badlands evoked the societal defiance of the best Western movie protagonists. However, this dark story about a 25-year-old garbage collector going on a killing spree with his 15-year-old girlfriend played out like a sinister cautionary tale on choice, freedom, and immorality.

As an extraordinary debut film from Mallick, Badlands’ cinematography, characters, and music all contributed to its Western feeling, although its late-1950s setting meant it was far removed from the Wild West. As a couple on the run making their way across the landscape of America, it was impossible not to conjure images of classic Western antiheroes. With Martin Sheen as the charismatic but deeply troubled leading man, he had the rugged good looks of a noble Western hero yet possessed the characteristics of an immoral, villainous bandit.

3

Logan (2017)

Logan melded the superhero and Western genres

After having portrayed the mutant superhero Wolverine in the X-Men franchise since 2000, Hugh Jackman starred in what was billed as his final appearance in the series, Logan. Taking inspiration from the “Old Man Logan” comics by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven, Logan featured an aged Wolverine and an extremely ill Charles Xavier protecting a young mutant girl from the Reavers led by Donald Pierce and Zander Rice. With a dark and violent tone that was closer to a Western than a traditional superhero movie, Logan felt like a gritty and mature farewell to the character.

While Jackman has since returned to the role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe release ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine, Logan remains one of the most impactful and narratively rich superhero movies ever. With themes of revenge and the weary consequences of heroism, Logan had a lot in common with Western classics like True Grit and Unforgiven. The highly stylized nature of Logan harkened back to black-and-white Westerns and film noirs of the past, which were further highlighted by the limited theatrical release of Logan Noir, a black-and-white edition of the film.

2

Seven Samurai (1954)

Seven Samurai originated many tropes and cliches commonly seen in Westerns

Samurai stories and Western tales are two genres regularly compared to each other and whose tropes and tenets share much in common. This was certainly the case with Akira Kurosawa’s martial arts classic Seven Samurai, a movie that had an undeniable effect on the Western genre. Although it was set in the 1500s Sengoku period of Japanese history, the gathering of a team trope seen in the film would be copied and parodied in countless subsequent Western movies. Seven Samurai even received an American remake as the Western classic The Magnificent Seven.

In a story filled with heroes and outlaws, Seven Samurai depicted a village of desperate farmers hiring samurai to protect them from crooked bandits. With a landscape easily comparable to the Wild West, the honor of the samurai felt similar to the vigilante-style justice so often seen from lone wolf Western heroes who live by a personal code of justice. As one of the most influential films ever made, it’s no surprise that Seven Samurai has become such a common reference point for American Western movies.

1

Star Wars (1977)

Star Wars was majorly influenced by classic stories of cowboys and outlaws

Featuring classic Western archetypes, such as Luke Skywalker’s hero’s journey, Han Solo as the lone gunslinger, or the Wild West frontier that is the desert planet of Tatooine and the rest of the vast universe, Star Wars is packed with Western tropes and cliches. Even the lightsaber battles bring to mind Mexican standoffs and fast-draw duels. George Lucas clearly took inspiration from Westerns, kung fu, and old adventure movie serials when he envisioned the world of Star Wars.

Not only does the battle between good and evil represented by the Force and the Dark Side evoke classic Western themes of heroes and villains, but the dusty landscape and gritty locations bring to mind the Wild West in every scene. From the outlaw-ridden tavern Mos Eisley Cantina to the bounty-hunting smuggling endeavors of Han Solo, Star Wars and its sequels, spin-offs, and extended media could not exist without the influence of Western movies.

Source: Guardian