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Japan's G.O.A.T director made two great samurai movies called Yojimbo and Sanjuro. Yojimbo's score on Rotten Tomatoes is 97/97, and Sanjuro's is 100/95 for what it's worth....
I just happened to see those two first. When I went to watch A Fistfull of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More I learned that they were remakes of Yojimbo/Sanjuro and decided to skip them. Same thing goes for some other big westerns of the 60's.
Pretty cool how the two genres made their way through time though. Westerns pretty much started from scratch and were here since the beginning of film. Just as the western was starting to wane, the Japs used them as inspiration for their samurai films. Then the Italians saw those and used them as inspiration for their new Westerns. Soon after, the Americans caught on which caused a revival back home where it all started.
Every action film since owes itself to the movies made during this exchange.
Without it, a guy like Tarrantino for instance wouldn't even have a career.
I just happened to see those two first. When I went to watch A Fistfull of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More I learned that they were remakes of Yojimbo/Sanjuro and decided to skip them. Same thing goes for some other big westerns of the 60's.
Pretty cool how the two genres made their way through time though. Westerns pretty much started from scratch and were here since the beginning of film. Just as the western was starting to wane, the Japs used them as inspiration for their samurai films. Then the Italians saw those and used them as inspiration for their new Westerns. Soon after, the Americans caught on which caused a revival back home where it all started.
Every action film since owes itself to the movies made during this exchange.
Without it, a guy like Tarrantino for instance wouldn't even have a career.
You wanna call "Brokeback" a western because it has cowboys? Okay fine, I'll grant you that. You wanna say it's great? I won't stand for that shit. I wouldn't even call it good. I know the gay cowboy thing was the gimmick everyone went nuts over (pun partially intended), but the fact is two far better LGBT movies came out that very same year: "Mysterious Skin" & "TransAmerica." "Brokeback" was often like watching paint dry. [/rant]
Anyhoo, lots of good ones have been brought up in this thread. Some I really like that I don't think have been mentioned:
Once Upon a Time in the West
High Noon
Unforgiven
Posse
The Quick and the Dead (the Gene Hackman/Sharon Stone one) It's not great, but it's a guilty pleasure of mine.
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