From Shane to The Wild Bunch to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, there are some truly thrilling shootout sequences in classic Western movies.
- Western movies often feature thrilling shootout sequences as a prominent trope, culminating in high-octane gunfights between heroes and villains.
- The tone of these shootout scenes varies, from triumphant and celebratory to subversive and unsettling, reflecting different perspectives on the act of killing.
- Shootout scenes in classic Western movies have influenced the depiction of gunplay in modern action cinema, shaping the way it is portrayed in films today.
From the saloon standoff at the end of Shane to the cemetery showdown at the end of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, there are plenty of exciting shootout sequences in classic Western movies. Shootout scenes are one of the most prevalent tropes of the Western genre, along with bar fights, cattle drives, and train robberies. Almost every Western movie culminates in a high-octane gunfight between the heroes and villains. Even the most subversive anti-Westerns, like The Great Silence and McCabe and Mrs. Miller, can’t stay away from shootouts in their final acts.
The tone of these scenes varies from film to film. Some climactic Western movie shootouts are a triumphant moment for the hero as they vanquish the villain and celebrate with the townspeople. Others are more subversive and downbeat, treating the act of killing as an appropriately morbid and unsettling experience. The way that gunplay is depicted in modern action cinema was directly influenced by the final firefights in violent Westerns like The Wild Bunch and Rio Bravo. From Django to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the Western genre is full of iconic shootout scenes.
10, High Noon (1952)
Gary Cooper’s Marshal Will Kane spends the majority of High Noon desperately trying to avoid his showdown with the outlaw Frank Miller, who’s seeking revenge for being incarcerated. In the movie’s thrilling finale, Kane finally steps up to the plate and teams up with his reluctant pacifist wife, Amy, to drive Miller and his gang from the town. The shootout is full of twists and turns, from Kane getting shot off his horse to Amy choosing her husband’s life over her religious beliefs and joining the firefight.
9, Django (1966)
The climactic shootout of Sergio Corbucci’s essential spaghetti Western Django brings the emotional arc of the story full circle. Franco Nero’s titular gunslinger is motivated by avenging the death of his former lover Mercedes Zaro at the hands of the sadistic Major Jackson. In the finale, a broken-handed Django removes the trigger guard from his pistol and then pushes the trigger against Zaro’s headstone to gun down Jackson and his henchmen. This blood-soaked ending is both delightfully grisly and surprisingly poetic.
8, Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969)
William Goldman pioneered the anti-Western with his seminal screenplay for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Butch and Sundance aren’t the badass sheriffs taking down outlaws; they are the outlaws. They don’t stand strong in the face of adversity; they flee instantly. In the film’s most climactic set piece, the duo is cornered by the Bolivian Army and left with very limited options. What makes this shootout so memorable is the ambiguity. Butch and Sundance have no hope of survival, but the movie freeze-frames before their inevitable loss to highlight the naive optimism they maintain in spite of facing certain doom.
7, Rio Bravo (1959)
For most of its runtime, Rio Bravo is a laid-back hangout movie as John Wayne’s Sheriff John T. Chance sits around with his new deputies and waits for a gun-toting posse to arrive. When the villains finally get to town, director Howard Hawks indulges in a high-octane action sequence. Chance and his two new friends are vastly outnumbered by the bad guy and his army, but they manage to get the upper hand by detonating some dynamite. Rio Bravo is a lot more dialogue-driven than the average Western movie. However, this climactic scene has more than enough action to make up for it.
6, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
John Ford re-imagined his black-and-white vision of the Old West in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
5, Unforgiven (1992)
Clint Eastwood’s final Western, Unforgiven, is a bleak deconstruction of the genre’s tropes and a bittersweet swansong for the genre itself. The late-night shootout in which the notorious William Munny guns down Little Bill and his deputies in a saloon masterfully subverts the expectations of a Western movie’s final shootout. It’s not a glorious moment of heroism; it’s a grim moment of bloodshed. The townspeople don’t celebrate this brutal act of vigilante justice — they’re terrified. Big Whiskey doesn’t become a more lawful town because its citizens are inspired to become better people: instead, it’s because Will has threatened to return if they don’t.
4, Shane (1953)
When Alan Ladd’s titular ex-gunfighter learns that the villains are planning to double-cross his employer during a late-night negotiation at a saloon, he heads into town himself to kill them. Like Unforgiven, Shane takes a subversive, deconstructive approach to its climactic action. Although the locals would’ve celebrated Shane for killing the baddies who were tormenting them, he feels as though he can’t settle down into civilian life, so he moves on, riding off into the night. Shane had a just reason to kill Jack Wilson and the Ryker brothers, but that doesn’t change the fact that “there’s no living with a killing.”
3, The Mercenary (1968)
The duel in the arena in The Mercenary is one of Corbucci’s most nail-biting and beautifully shot action sequences. The arena setting creates a lot of eerie empty space around the gunfighters and puts the audience’s focus squarely on the standoff itself. Jack Palance’s campy villain Curly quickly loses his arrogant smirk when a bullet goes through the carnation in his pocket and blood starts pouring out of the wound. This moment is so iconic that Quentin Tarantino recreated it for Calvin Candie’s death in Django Unchained.
2, The Wild Bunch (1969)
When Sam Peckinpah shoots an action scene, he goes all in. In his gritty revisionist Western epic The Wild Bunch, the titular band of outlaws is eventually met by the full force of the Mexican Federal Army. Still, they don’t go down without a fight. Dubbed “The Battle of Bloody Porch,” it’s one of the most frenzied shootout sequences in cinema history, especially when the machine gun makes an appearance. Crafting this grueling five-minute sequence required 12 days of filming, 300 cuts, and 10,000 squibs (via /Film).
1, The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly (1966)
The mother of all Western movie shootouts is the climactic showdown between the three title characters in Sergio Leone’s magnum opus The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. The scene is beautifully underscored by the iconic Ennio Morricone track “The Trio,” which pairs perfectly with Leone’s camerawork to gradually build suspense. As great as Morricone’s music is, the real star of this sequence is the editing. The cuts between the three men get faster and faster, and the framing of their faces and their pistols gets tighter and tighter before they finally draw and fire to break the tension.