Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer’s Tombstone is a beloved and classic Western these days, but it only has 74% on Rotten Tomatoes. Tombstone is widely considered one of the best Westerns ever made, but that wasn’t always the case. The film has always been a hit with audiences: Tombstone has a 93% rating in Rotten Tomatoes’ audience reviews, and it earned $56 million domestically at the box office and even more on home video rentals. Such a wide gap between the critics’ reviews of Tombstone and viewers’ opinions of it is a bit strange, however.

There are plenty of movies where critics panned what turned out to be wildly popular films. Even another Kurt Russell classic – John Carpenter’s The Thing – opened to harsh criticism only to later be revered as a timeless masterpiece. Tombstone, however, seemed to have everything both critics and audiences wanted to see. It features a deeply talented list of star actors like Val Kilmer, incredibly beautiful scenery and cinematography, an emotionally rich and moving plot, and all the action anyone could hope for. It’s rare that critics get it so wrong that they write off an absolute classic as a middle-of-the-road movie, but it happened with Tombstone.

What Tombstone’s Reviews Said About The Movie

Even Positive Reviews Of Tombstone Took Issue With Some Parts Of The Film

Interestingly, reviews of Tombstone seemed to divide critics. Some reviewers outright hated the film, and said as much in their critiques. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly said “Tombstone plays like a three-hour rough cut that’s been trimmed down to a slightly shorter rough cut.” Richard Harrington of the Washington Post said Tombstone was “Highly stylized fashion-wise but awkwardly unfocused in its plotlines.” Some common points of criticism were the actresses in the cast of Tombstone and Cosmatos’ directorial style, which critics claimed emulated but failed to live up to Sergio Leone’s iconic films. Those negative reviews dragged Tombstone‘s overall score down towards 74%.

Even the positive reviews of Tombstone had several critiques to make and caveats to their praise. Chris Hicks of Deseret News said “Taken on its own terms, with some lowered expectations, Western fans will have fun,” and recommended other Westerns for viewers to watch instead of Tombstone. The only thing virtually all reviewers could agree on with Tombstone is that Val Kilmer gave a fantastic performance as Doc Holliday. Even Kilmer wasn’t enough to get the film’s overall score over 80%, though, and reviewers generally agreed that Tombstone was a flawed movie that was only marginally worth watching.

There Wasn’t A Huge Amount Of Faith In Tombstone At The Time

Even Tombstone’s Production Companies Thought The Film Would Fail

On paper, Tombstone shouldn’t have been the hit it proved to be. Westerns declined in popularity after the 1960s, and the genre was widely seen as outdated and overplayed. The 1990s was a resurgence for the Western genre, but mostly in the form of grittier, Revisionist Westerns like Unforgiven or Geronimo: An American Legend. Tombstone, on the other hand, was much closer to the classic Westerns of yesteryear, which many people thought critics wouldn’t appreciate anymore. Even the studios behind Tombstone thought the film would be a critical flop; Siskel and Ebert couldn’t review Tombstone because the studios didn’t offer advanced screenings.

Why Tombstone Deserves To Be Regarded As A Classic Western & Has Aged So Well

Tombstone Is Endlessly Rewatchable & Feels More Special With Each Pᴀssing Year

In spite of its bad reviews and the studio’s lack of faith, Tombstone defied it all and went down as one of the last true classics of the Western genre. A big reason Tombstone stood the test of time while its negative reviews didn’t is because the film has aged incredibly gracefully. Its hopeful view of the Old West and classical good versus evil narrative, which was already rare in 1993, has only gotten more uncommon as time has pᴀssed. Tombstone feels like the last classic Western, so it’s only natural that audiences have come to appreciate it even more over the years.

Aside from being an example of the type of hopeful, lighthearted, and swooping epic movie that just isn’t in style anymore, Tombstone also has some truly evergreen features to it. Val Kilmer’s best moments as Doc Holliday are just as entertaining now as they were in 1993, and some of the best scenes in Tombstone are also some of the best scenes in the Western genre in general. Tombstone is endlessly rewatchable, and everything about it makes it feel like a truly special movie . Tombstone has certainly earned its spot as a classic Western, no matter what critics have to say about it.