Friday, October 7, 2011

TimeOut London's Top 50 Westerns

TimeOut London always has put out very thorough, iconoclastic film lists and their "Top 50 Westerns" is no different. 
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I have my own list of the Top 30 Westerns coming out pretty soon here (likely after October), and as a pretty big fan of the genre, I have a discerning, argumentative opinion regarding TimeOut's particular picks. 
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That being said, the list is pretty good for the most part. I appreciate their respect for the great Budd Boetticher, for Robert Aldrich's "Vera Cruz" and for the inclusion of Robert Dominik's "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford". Plus their #1 and #2 picks of "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" and "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" are especially inspired. 
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But every time I see "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" and "The Searchers" anywhere near the Top 10 I get a little queasy. And I love Anthony Mann, but I don't believe that "Winchester '73" is in his personal Top 4, much less one of the top 4 westerns of all-time. 
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Here are TimeOut's Top 10:
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1. "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" (1971)
2. "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" (1973)
3. "The Searchers" (1956)
4. "Winchester '73" (1950)
5. "The Outlaw Josey Wales" (1976)
6. "Dead Man" (1995)
7. "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962)
8. "Johnny Guitar" (1954)
9. "Decision at Sundown" (1957)
10. "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (1966)

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