The Western Rides On
The 1980s were rough country for Western movies. Audiences had moved on, studios were wary, and one spectacular flop nearly became a tombstone for the genre. But filmmakers kept saddling up, producing traditional shootouts, revisionist dramas, comedies, Australian adventures, and even some genuine classics here and there!
Screenshot of Clint Eastwood in 'Pale Rider' (1985), modified, Warner Brothers
Tom Horn (1980)
Steve McQueen gave one of his final performances as real-life frontier scout and gunman Tom Horn, hired by Wyoming cattlemen to deal with rustlers. Directed by William Wiard and co-starring Linda Evans and Richard Farnsworth, the melancholy film depicts a legendary Westerner discovering that the West has moved on without him.
Screenshot from Tom Horn, Warner Bros. (1980)
The Long Riders (1980)
Walter Hill found an inspired way to tell the story of the James-Younger Gang: casting actual acting brothers as the outlaw brothers. James and Stacy Keach, David, Keith and Robert Carradine, Dennis and Randy Quaid, and Christopher and Nicholas Guest helped make this violent, atmospheric Western something special.
Screenshot from The Long Riders, United Artists (1980)
Bronco Billy (1980)
Clint Eastwood directed and starred as the owner of a struggling Wild West show who remains hopelessly devoted to the cowboy ideal. Sondra Locke, Geoffrey Lewis and Scatman Crothers co-starred. Technically a contemporary Western, Bronco Billy affectionately examined what the mythology of the Old West still meant to modern Americans.
Screenshot from Bronco Billy, Warner Bros. (1980)
The Mountain Men (1980)
Charlton Heston and Brian Keith played grizzled trappers Bill Tyler and Henry Frapp in this old-fashioned frontier adventure directed by Richard Lang. Set during the dying days of the fur trade, The Mountain Men offered magnificent scenery, rough humor and two aging adventurers stubbornly resisting the civilization creeping toward them.
Screenshot from The Mountain Men, Paramount Pictures (1980)
Heaven’s Gate (1980)
Michael Cimino followed The Deer Hunter with this enormous, visually sumptuous account of Wyoming’s Johnson County War. Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, Isabelle Huppert, John Hurt and Jeff Bridges headed the cast. Its catastrophic initial reception became part of Hollywood legend, although later restorations brought a more favorable critical reassessment.
Screenshot from Heaven’s Gate, United Artists (1980)
Windwalker (1980)
Trevor Howard starred as an elderly Cheyenne warrior in Kieth Merrill’s unusual frontier drama, although much of the dialogue was spoken in Cheyenne and Crow. The story follows Windwalker’s spiritual return to help his endangered family, giving the decade an early Western told largely from a Native American perspective.
Screenshot from Windwalker, Orion Pictures (1980)
Cattle Annie And Little Britches (1981)
Amanda Plummer and Diane Lane portrayed teenage outlaws Cattle Annie and Little Britches, who become fascinated by the fading Doolin-Dalton gang. Burt Lancaster brought tremendous presence to aging outlaw Bill Doolin, with Rod Steiger as Marshal Bill Tilghman in Lamont Johnson’s quirky, wistful look at frontier legends nearing their end.
Screenshot from Cattle Annie and Little Britches, Warner Bros. (1981), Enhanced
Death Hunt (1981)
Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin faced off across the frozen Canadian wilderness in Peter Hunt’s rugged adventure. Bronson plays trapper Albert Johnson, pursued by Marvin’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer after a confrontation turns deadly. Loosely inspired by the real 1932 manhunt for the mysterious “Mad Trapper” of Rat River.
Screenshot from Death Hunt, Cinema Group (1981)
Zorro, The Gay Blade (1981)
George Hamilton played both Don Diego de la Vega and his flamboyant twin brother Ramón, who has adopted the name Bunny Wigglesworth, in Peter Medak’s broad Zorro spoof. Lauren Hutton, Brenda Vaccaro and Ron Leibman joined the fun. Silly by design, the movie demonstrated one way the Western survived the decade: by cheerfully making fun of itself.
Screenshot from Zorro, The Gay Blade, 20th Century Fox (1981)
Barbarosa (1982)
Country legend Willie Nelson made a wonderfully weathered outlaw in Fred Schepisi’s Barbarosa. Gary Busey plays an inexperienced farm boy who falls in with him while fleeing trouble of his own. Their adventures gradually reveal Barbarosa as something larger than a man, a frontier legend sustained by the people pursuing him.
Screenshot from Barbarosa, Universal Pictures (1982)
The Man From Snowy River (1982)
Westerns didn't have to be American. George T. Miller’s gorgeous Australian adventure starred Tom Burlinson as Jim Craig, a young mountain horseman determined to prove himself. Kirk Douglas memorably played two roles, while Sigrid Thornton co-starred in a sweeping story inspired by Banjo Paterson’s famous Australian poem.
Screenshot from The Man from Snowy River, Walt Disney Productions (1982)
The Ballad Of Gregorio Cortez (1982)
Edward James Olmos delivered a powerful performance as Gregorio Cortez, a Mexican-American farmer pursued across Texas after a poorly translated interrogation ended in a deadly confrontation with a sheriff. Robert M. Young’s deliberately understated film explores how language and perspective can transform events into legend. It was later selected for the National Film Registry.
Screenshot from The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, American Playhouse (1982)
Timerider: The Adventure Of Lyle Swann (1982)
A Western crossed with science fiction sounds wonderfully strange, and that is precisely what William Dear delivered. Fred Ward plays a modern motorcycle racer accidentally transported to 1877, where his dirt bike appears almost supernatural. Peter Coyote co-stars as an outlaw determined to get his hands on the mysterious machine.
Screenshot from Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann, New World Pictures (1982)
The Grey Fox (1982)
Richard Farnsworth was perfectly cast as real-life stagecoach robber Bill Miner, who emerges from prison to discover that the 20th century has arrived. Phillip Borsos’ beautifully photographed Canadian Western follows Miner as he learns about motion pictures and turns his attention to trains, becoming an outlaw increasingly displaced by the modern world.
Screenshot from The Grey Fox, United Artists Classics (1982)
Honkytonk Man (1982)
Clint Eastwood directed himself alongside his son Kyle Eastwood in this Depression-era road movie about an ailing country singer traveling toward Nashville and one last chance at success. More Americana than traditional horse opera, Honkytonk Man nevertheless feels deeply Western, with Eastwood playing another lonely drifter nearing the end of his trail.
Screenshot from Honkytonk Man, Warner Bros. (1982)
Lone Wolf McQuade (1983)
Chuck Norris met David Carradine in Steve Carver’s modern Western, and their climactic showdown alone practically guaranteed cult status. Norris plays Texas Ranger J.J. McQuade, a dusty, fiercely independent lawman battling Carradine’s sophisticated criminal. Barbara Carrera, L.Q. Jones and Robert Beltran round out the cast.
Screenshot from Lone Wolf McQuade, Orion Pictures (1983)
Eyes Of Fire (1983)
One of the decade’s strangest Westerns mixed frontier survival with folk horror. Avery Crounse’s film follows a group of 18th-century settlers into an isolated valley inhabited by mysterious supernatural forces. Dennis Lipscomb and Guy Boyd starred in a movie that proved the Western landscape could accommodate something far stranger than gunslingers.
Screenshot from Eyes of Fire, New Line Cinema (1983)
Lust In The Dust (1985)
Paul Bartel directed this cheerfully outrageous Western comedy starring Divine, Tab Hunter and Lainie Kazan. The search for buried treasure brings an assortment of eccentric characters together in the appropriately named town of Chili Verde. It is crude, campy and deliberately excessive, while gleefully dismantling familiar Western conventions.
Screenshot from Lust in the Dust, Embassy Pictures (1985), Enhanced
Rustlers’ Rhapsody (1985)
Tom Berenger played Rex O’Herlihan, a squeaky-clean singing-cowboy hero seemingly transported from an old B-Western into a more cynical age. Hugh Wilson’s affectionate parody also featured G.W. Bailey, Marilu Henner, Fernando Rey and Andy Griffith, poking fun at cowboy clichés without disguising its genuine affection for them.
Screenshot from Rustlers’ Rhapsody, Paramount Pictures (1985)
Pale Rider (1985)
Clint Eastwood returned to the mysterious-stranger archetype as a preacher who rides into a mining community being terrorized by a powerful businessman. Michael Moriarty and Richard Dysart co-starred. Directed by Eastwood himself, Pale Rider had strong echoes of the earlier Western classic Shane (1953). This traditional Western had an eerie, almost supernatural atmosphere and became a substantial theatrical success.
Screenshot from Pale Rider, Warner Bros. (1985)
Silverado (1985)
Lawrence Kasdan enthusiastically embraced the pleasures of the classic Hollywood Western in Silverado. Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, Danny Glover and Kevin Costner form an unlikely group of heroes, while Brian Dennehy makes a formidable villain. After years of increasingly bleak Westerns, this one remembered that riding into town could simply be fun.
Screenshot from Silverado, Columbia Pictures (1985)
Three Amigos! (1986)
Steve Martin, Chevy Chase and Martin Short played silent-film stars who mistake a desperate Mexican village’s plea for help as an invitation to perform. John Landis directed this affectionate Western comedy, with Alfonso Arau memorably playing El Guapo. The heroes eventually discover that pretending to be cowboys is considerably easier than being them.
Screenshot from Three Amigos!, Lorne Michaels Productions (1986), Enhanced
The Quick And The Dead (1987)
Not to be confused with the 1995 film of the same title, Robert Day directed this made-for-HBO adaptation of Louis L’Amour’s novel. Sam Elliott stars as mysterious gunfighter Con Vallian, who protects a westward-bound family played by Tom Conti, Kate Capshaw and Kenny Morrison from a vicious outlaw gang. It’s a straightforward, beautifully photographed Western that deserves to be better remembered.
Screenshot from The Quick and the Dead, HBO Films (1987)
Near Dark (1987)
Kathryn Bigelow wanted to make a Western, but financing one proved difficult, so she fused the genre with a vampire movie instead. Adrian Pasdar joins a nomadic vampire family led by Lance Henriksen, with Bill Paxton stealing scenes as the terrifying Severen. The result became an enduring cult favorite.
Screenshot from Near Dark, F/M Entertainment (1987)
Walker (1987)
Alex Cox directed Ed Harris as William Walker, the American adventurer who invaded Nicaragua and briefly made himself its president during the 1850s. Deliberate anachronisms make it clear that historical realism is not the point. Instead, Walker uses the Western form for a provocative satire of American interventionism.
Screenshot from Walker, Universal Pictures (1987)
The Man From Snowy River II (1988)
Tom Burlinson and Sigrid Thornton returned as Jim Craig and Jessica Harrison in the sequel to the Australian hit. Geoff Burrowes took over directing duties, while Brian Dennehy replaced Kirk Douglas as Harrison. Horses, mountains and spectacular riding again dominate a romantic adventure unmistakably descended from the Western tradition.
Screenshot from The Man from Snowy River II, Walt Disney Productions (1988)
Young Guns (1988)
The Western finally found a way to court the MTV generation. Emilio Estevez played Billy the Kid alongside Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Charlie Sheen, Dermot Mulroney and Casey Siemaszko as the Regulators. Christopher Cain’s energetic retelling of the Lincoln County War became a hit and eventually spawned a sequel.
Screenshot from Young Guns, 20th Century Fox (1988)
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