Cinema was transformed in the 1960s, and the best westerns from the decade represented new and original voices in the beloved film genre. After hitting their peak during Hollywood’s Golden Age, westerns slowly began to fall out of favor throughout the 1960s. Burgeoning cultural shifts made classic westerns seem out of touch with the changing times.
The westerns that did get produced throughout the 1960s were noticeably different from their predecessors, and they often tore down the idealized view of American history. The genre became a platform for exciting approaches to cinema, and subgenres like acid westerns and anti-westerns were born in the ’60s. Often, these films were used as analogs for contemporary issues.
Meanwhile, Italian filmmakers like Sergio Leone were adding their distinct voices to the conversation, and the so-called spaghetti western offered an alternative view to traditional Hollywood filmmaking. The ’60s saw John Wayne have his swan song, and the genre as a whole became more violent. The times indeed were changing, and the best westerns changed too.
True Grit (1969)
Though John Wayne would continue to act until a few years before his pᴀssing in 1979, True Grit can be considered the Hollywood icon’s swan song. Produced at the tail end of the decade, the Charles Portis adaptation is the closest Wayne ever came to starring in a truly subversive western in his entire career.
True Grit was remade in 2010 by the Coen brothers.
While it tones down the complex themes from Portis’ novel, True Grit is the perfect blending of old and new. It has all the exaggerated charm of a classic Hollywood western, with just a touch of modern introspection to make it feel contemporary. Rooster Cogburn is one of Wayne’s defining characters, and showed his growth as a performer.
Django (1966)
The spaghetti western helped breathe new life into the tired old genre in the 1960s, but few were as startling and memorable as Sergio Corbucci’s Django. Unlike American films, which were bound by somewhat strict censorship, Italian westerns were free to be as violent and sensational as the filmmakers wanted.
Django strikes a nice balance between the larger-than-life style of the spaghetti western with a gritty approach to action that lends every moment a lot of impact. It’s also impossible to separate the film from its social commentary, with the тιтle character blasting his way through racism in a time when civil rights movements were springing up around the globe.
The Great Silence (1968)
While Sergio Corbucci’s other spaghetti westerns were immediate hits worldwide, his 1968 gem is only now being rediscovered. The Great Silence is the payoff to many of Corbucci’s ideas in earlier films, and its violence is intense and savage like the characters themselves. It follows a conventional western structure, while intentionally subverting established tropes.
The ’60s was all about deconstructing old ideas, and The Great Silence deserves a lot of credit for incorporating that method into spaghetti westerns. While nowhere near as famous as many other classic ’60s westerns, Corbucci’s hidden gem is endlessly entertaining without having to sacrifice any of its complex political messaging.
The Magnificent Seven (1960)
Old West remakes of Japanese films were all the rage in the 1960s, but The Magnificent Seven imported Eastern cinema for a Western audience better than most. Based on Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven ᴀssembles an epic ensemble for one of the last great westerns of the dying days of Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Each gunslinger has a distinct personality, and half the fun of the movie is watching the cast interact. Though the action is crisp and quintessentially old school, it’s the humor of The Magnificent Seven that truly makes it one of the best ’60s westerns. It’s a sincere movie that exemplifies why Golden Age westerns are still so beloved.
The Wild Bunch (1969)
By the time the 1960s drew to a close, Hollywood had changed completely. Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch was a glowing example of how far the genre had come throughout the decade, with its bloody violence and active camera that was wholly foreign to westerns only 10 years before. However, its themes are what really shine the brightest.
The Wild Bunch is set in the final days of the “Old West”, with gunslingers and outlaws becoming quickly extinct. It represents the death and rebirth of westerns as a whole, with the idealized Golden Age flicks giving way to bloody and realistic depictions of the frontier. The Wild Bunch isn’t just one of the best ’60s westerns, it’s also one of the smartest.
Butch Cᴀssidy And The Sundance Kid (1969)
Butch Cᴀssidy and the Sundance Kid was the highest-grossing movie of 1969 (via Box Office Mojo), and it proved that westerns could still be popular during such a revolutionary time in cinema. Despite its popularity, the Paul Newman and Robert Redford vehicle was anything but pedestrian, and it told a classic Old West tale using every New Hollywood screenwriting trick.
Playful and anachronistic, Butch Cᴀssidy and the Sundance Kid grappled with modern issues with a smile instead of dour seriousness. However, it still expertly deconstructed tropes like heroism and justice, and it had a memorable modern soundtrack too. If any western looked most like the late 1960s, it was undoubtedly the 1969 Oscar winner.
For A Few Dollars More (1965)
The middle film in Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy, For a Few Dollars More, is arguably where the spaghetti western genre hit its stride. The camera is active and alive, and the action is crisp and usually exaggerated. However, there is a darkness to For a Few Dollars More that sets it apart from the classic westerns it pays tribute to.
Unlike other spaghetti westerns which tumble into ideology, For a Few Dollars More resists completely deconstructing western tropes. It embraces clichés like the silent hero, but adds to them by pushing the tropes to the limit. It’s overlooked in favor of its predecessor or successor, but For a Few Dollars More is certainly one of the best ’60s films, period.
Once Upon A Time In The West (1968)
Right after delivering his epic Dollars trilogy, Sergio Leone continued his jaunt into westerns with Once Upon a Time in the West. By the end of the ’60s, the spaghetti western format had firmly been established, with dozens of films being made in the latter half of the decade. Meanwhile, Once Upon a Time in the West represented the subgenre’s transcendence.
Leone brilliantly uses the art of cinema to dilate and contract time whenever needed, and it has grit and hard-nosed action without losing its almost anachronistic grandeur. While other filmmakers from the 1960s were stripping the western down to its bare essence, Leone reveled in an almost Golden Age approach to filmmaking.
The Man Who SH๏τ Liberty Valance (1962)
John Ford’s westerns helped to firmly establish the genre as bona fide art in the ’40s and ’50s, and The Man Who SH๏τ Liberty Valance was one of the filmmaker’s last gifts to the world. The stark and brooding western united John Wayne and James Stewart for the first time in a story that subverted the typical straightforward narrative approach.
SH๏τ in black and white to give the story focus, The Man Who SH๏τ Liberty Valance isn’t an idealized celebration of machismo, but instead a dark portrait of violence in the dying days of the Old West. The film itself is a symbol for the changing of the guard from one generation to the next, and it’s also simply one of the best westerns of the decade.
The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1966)
Each installment in the Dollars trilogy saw Sergio Leone get better and better at his craft until everything culminated with The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The spaghetti western epic quickly transcended its genre and became a crucial part of the language of cinema. Its nearly three-hour running time is used effectively, with sudden surprises and drawn-out suspense.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is without a doubt the best ’60s western because it left the biggest mark on the genre. While others were tearing down, Leone built something fresh from the recognizable bones of a bygone era. Even viewers who might not be as knowledgeable about westerns will know it, and it still influences filmmakers today.
