Fans of the Western genre would argue that every Western movie is entertaining. However, viewers and fans who wish to get into something a little more different than just the Clint Eastwood and John Wayne classics can go down the route of more easygoing and entertaining movies that have big action sequences, plenty of laughs, or even stylish directing – with some even having all three of those elements to boast about.
Western is a highly beloved genre, so some of its funnest representatives come from different decades, proving that cowboy and outlaw stories can never die. Despite feeling restrictive in terms of topic or theme, Western movies are actually highly diverse; if a story lacks inspiration, then it’s about how it was told and made. The most entertaining Westerns can be fun for fans and non-fans, beginners and seasoned viewers alike; it’s all about finding the balance that works for everyone.
10
‘The Quick and the Dead’ (1995)
Directed by Sam Raimi
The Quick and the Dead was dead on arrival, with critics panning Sam Raimi for the movie’s storytelling combined with the Western genre; considering it cliche-filled, they dismissed the feature quickly. It later got a new lifeline after Raimi’s fans revisited and boosted the movie, appreciating it for a visionary directing style and setting. The Quick and the Dead belongs to the revisionist Western genre, offering a morally complex analysis of its characters and of the genre overall. No matter what the critics say, The Quick and the Dead is a different take on a Western movie, and really fun to watch from that perspective.
The movie is set in the Wild West town called Redemption, where the mayor, John Herod (Gene Hackman), organizes a fast-draw tournament; a woman from far away, known as “The Lady” (Sharon Stone), enters the competition, but her motives soon turn out to be against Herod personally. The movie also stars Leonardo DiCaprio as The Kid, a teenager who thinks Herod is his father, and Russell Crowe as Cort, an outlaw turned preacher. With each participant having ulterior motives, the movie unfolds through stunning close-ups, slo-mo shots, and fast-paced editing. It’s a unique Western that fans and non-fans of the genre can enjoy.
The Quick and the Dead
- Release Date
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February 9, 1995
- Runtime
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107 Minutes
9
‘Blazing Saddles’ (1974)
Directed by Mel Brooks
It’s a fact that a Western comedy would be the best entertainment for anyone looking for a genre movie and some lighthearted fun. Luckily, Mel Brooks covered it in his hit movie Blazing Saddles, a feature many would argue couldn’t be made today. One of the most unique Westerns out there, Blazing Saddles is both a parody and an independent story, starring Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little as Waco Kid, a gambling alcoholic, and Bart, a railroad worker turned sheriff, respectively.
Blazing Saddles follows Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman), a territorial attorney general, who wishes to demolish the city of Rock Ridge, so a railroad can pass through the territory. To get the residents to move out, Lamarr advises appointing Bart, a Black railroad worker, as sheriff; however, Bart and his deputy, alcoholic gunslinger Waco Kid (Wilder) win over the residents slowly. When Lamarr realizes Rock Ridge isn’t going away, he sends thugs to get rid of the residents. The movie is set in the 19th century Wild West, but a lot of the speech and references are modern (1974 modern). Brooks used many other methods to make the movie worth rewatching several times, like homages, anachronisms, and even breaking the fourth wall.

Blazing Saddles
- Release Date
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February 7, 1974
- Runtime
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93 minutes
8
‘Cat Ballou’ (1965)
Directed by Elliott Silverstein
Jane Fonda leads the Western comedy Cat Ballou, a story about a teacher turned outlaw in the Wild West. This movie is a rare Western led by a female protagonist, and Fonda slips into the role effortlessly. Next to her, there’s Lee Marvin, who won an Oscar for his dual role as Kid Shelleen and Tim Strawn. This movie is often chosen by actors and filmmakers as their favorite or most influential; one example would be Bryan Cranston calling it the “movie that had the most impact on me” in an interview for NPR.
Cat Ballou follows the aspiring teacher Catherine Ballou (Fonda) who realizes her father’s farm and her father are under threat. She hires Kid Shelleen (Marvin), a known gunslinger, to wait for and kill her father’s assassin, Tim Strawn (also Marvin), but realizes Shelleen is now a useless drunk. Her father is killed, and she goes on a revenge-seeking rampage, becoming an outlaw herself. The really interesting part of the movie is the Greek chorus duo, Sam the Shade (Stubby Kaye) and Sunrise Kid (Nat King Cole), who sing about the events in the movie occasionally, making the story feel like a Greek tragicomedy of sorts.

Cat Ballou
- Release Date
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June 24, 1965
- Runtime
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97 Minutes
7
‘The Hateful Eight’ (2015)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
No one can deny The Hateful Eight is fun, but the fact is, it’s also Quentin Tarantino‘s most underrated movie. Why is that? His dream has always been to make a Western, and with Samuel L. Jackson in one of his best Tarantino movie roles, The Hateful Eight was meant for greatness from the get-go. It could be that people couldn’t put together the yappiness of Tarantino’s usual scripts with the mysterious and gritty vibe of a Western, but that’s actually the perfect combo if we reconsider it. The movie is fun because of Tarantino’s affinity for dialogue, and it has some truly unexpected, wild, and hilarious moments.
The Hateful Eight follows a group of Wild West travelers gathered in a lodge, Minnie’s Haberdashery. Major Marquis Warren (Jackson) intercepts a coach with bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his captive, Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh). When they arrive to Minnie’s Haberdashery, they encounter several other (suspicious) individuals. Warren senses something’s off, so it’s up to him to solve the mystery of the haberdashery. The movie’s set up as a play, too, as it mostly happens in one place; there’s some action, and plenty of whodunit vibes, but the dialogue is, as usual, spot on and always full of references and Easter Eggs. Classic Tarantino.

The Hateful Eight
- Release Date
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December 25, 2015
- Runtime
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188 Minutes
6
‘The Good, the Bad, the Weird’ (2008)
Directed by Kim Jee-woon
It’s unusual to see a South Korean feature film on a list of Westerns, but this is not a mistake. The Good, the Bad, the Weird by Kim Jee-woon is a Western indeed, set in the 1940s East, specifically Manchuria, China. Three Korean outlaws are roaming Japanese-occupied Manchuria during WWII; when one of them, a resilient train robber Tae-goo (Song Kang-ho), aka The Weird, finds a treasure map, he’s chased by the ruthless killer Chang-yi (Lee Byung-hun), aka The Bad, and the just gunslinger Do-won (Jung Woo-sung), aka The Good.
The three men are also simultaneously pursued by the Japanese army and Chinese authorities, since everybody wants the buried treasure. The action sequences in this movie are superbly entertaining; there’s so much to look at in every chase and fight scene, and the characters are charming and brilliantly acted. Though all three actors are South Korean veterans, Song Kang-ho as The Weird delivers a scene-stealing performance. The Good, the Bad, the Weird is a funny, action-packed hit that you don’t want to miss. This movie is said to be known as a “kimchi Western,” which may have come from Kim Jee-woon himself.

The Good, The Bad, The Weird
- Release Date
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July 17, 2008
- Runtime
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130 minutes
5
‘Compañeros’ (1970)
Directed by Sergio Corbucci
Franco Nero is the king of spaghetti Westerns, having starred in more than a dozen during his career. In Compañeros, he steers away from some of his more iconic (and serious) characters, like Django, and enters the world of Western buddy comedy as a Swedish arms dealer who joins forces with a man he despises because of a common goal. This is an incredibly underrated movie, but many people appreciate it for its clever script, great acting and chemistry, and the soundtrack composed by Ennio Morricone.
Compañeros follows Yodlaf Peterson (Nero), a suave Swedish arms dealer who comes to Mexico to sell guns and get rich. Opposite him is El Vasco (Tomas Millian), a ruthless revolutionary who dislikes Peterson immediately; when they realize they have the same goal, which is catching the elusive Professor Xantos (Fernando Rey) who carries the key to a safe, they reluctantly join forces. The movie is full of action-packed scenes and shootouts, and holds viewers’ attention during its comical and more serious scenes, too; it’s not the best of Nero’s Westerns, but it’s one of his funniest and most cheerful roles.

Compañeros
- Release Date
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March 31, 1972
- Runtime
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115 Minutes
4
‘The Professionals’ (1966)
Directed by Richard Brooks
Burt Lancaster and Lee Marvin join forces in the highly acclaimed Western with three Oscar nominations, The Professionals. The movie was praised for its clever writing and stunning directing, with Lancaster and Marvin both excelling in their roles in this fun adventure Western. Richard Brooks was nominated for Best Director and Best Screenplay (based on material from another medium), after writing the movie based on the Frank O’Rourke novel A Mule for the Marquesa.
The Professionals is about a rich American rancher hiring four men, professionals in different categories, to retrieve his kidnapped young wife. She was taken by a former revolutionary, Jesus Raza (Jack Palance), so the men need only follow his trail and find the woman. Once they do find her, though, the truth is a little different from presumed; this causes some conflict between the men. The movie is adventurous and really fun to watch; unlike more popular movies, including the similar The Wild Bunch, this is one of the more underrated Westerns that needs more attention from genre fans.
3
‘The Magnificent Seven’ (1960)
Directed by John Sturges
The Magnificent Seven can be claimed as entertaining for Steve McQueen alone, but that would be unfair to the rest of the cast, and even the rest of the movie. With McQueen doing his best to stay relevant in each frame, he delivers his scene-stealing moments with flair. This remake of Akira Kurosawa‘s Seven Samurai is pretty faithful to the original material, it just adds some of that Western charm with a star-studded cast and a deliriously entertaining plot.
The Magnificent Seven follows Chris (Yul Brynner), a gunslinger who decides to help the residents of a Mexican village to get rid of the pillagers that continuously attack them. Chris gathers five other gunslingers to help him, including a former gambler, Vin Tanner (McQueen), a young hothead, Chico (Horst Buchholz), and a professional hired gun, Bernardo O’Riley (Charles Bronson). They’re up against Calvera (Eli Wallach) and his crew of mercenaries, who keep raiding and bullying the villagers. The Magnificent Seven is really fun and has all the favorite Western movie stars in one place; you’re free to just watch McQueen be a menace, though, because that’s pretty entertaining, too.

The Magnificent Seven
- Release Date
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October 12, 1960
- Runtime
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128 Minutes
2
‘Tombstone’ (1993)
Directed by George P. Cosmatos
Tombstone is a favorite for many Western fans who like a blend of action, style, and good performances all around. Val Kilmer especially garnered praise for his role as Doc Holliday, and many critics do find him to be the best part of the star-studded movie. It follows the biggest legends of the Wild West, Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell), Doc Holliday (Kilmer), and Curly Bill Brocious (Powers Boothe).
The movie follows Wyatt Earp joining forces with his brothers Virgil (Sam Elliott) and Morgan (Bill Paxton), and his old friend Doc Holliday, to stop Curly Bill Brocious and his gang from murdering more innocent people. Earp and company are set up in Tombstone, Arizona, and they’re forced to take action rather than sit idly. Tombstone is a stylish cult classic, with lots of famous guest stars and faces; these appearances, however, don’t detract from the movie’s quality, or better said, it’s not just a parade of cool faces – they’ve got lots to show, too. Tombstone is brilliantly acted and has all the elements of a good, old-fashioned Western that sparks a fire in its viewers.

Tombstone
- Release Date
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December 25, 1993
- Runtime
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130 minutes
1
‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ (1969)
Directed by George Roy Hill
George Roy Hill directed Robert Redford and Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid around four years before directing them in The Sting. A caper and a Western spiritually have a lot in common, and they’re also beautiful visions when given to Hill. The only thing he’s ever been guilty of was a weird choice of music, but even jolly tunes can somehow fit into his stories about criminals. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is so fun to watch, you’ll forget the time, and its 110 minutes will fly by.
The movie is a true story about the outlaw leader Robert LeRoy Parker aka Butch Cassidy (Newman) and his companion, the sharpshooter Harry Longabaugh aka Sundance Kid (Redford). When Butch is ousted as gang leader in his absence, he and Sundance agree to do whatever the new leader suggests. After a train robbery goes wrong, the gang gets the law on their tail, and Butch and Sundance run away to South America with Sundance’s girlfriend, Etta Place (Katharine Ross). The robbery sequences are highly enjoyable, and Newman and Redford have fun with their characters, making Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid an enjoyable feature for any time of day.