The 10 Greatest Westerns of the 21st Century

Haven’t watched many that I liked. I enjoyed The Revenant very much and I also loved Comanche Moon but that’s a series.

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For what it’s worth: I have shown Reservoir Dogs to my thirteen year-old son, and in fact he was eleven when I let him see it with me. People may flinch at the thought of showing a film deemed so violent it was banned from home release for quite a few years here in the UK to a minor, but I know my son, I know what I’m comfortable for him to be exposed to,

When I was younger my parents did the same for me, they would let me watch many of the movies that most parents would turn their noses up at. Tarantino’s films included, though the thing is I usually watched them on TV (which is how I became exposed and infatuated with cinema). Usually watching these movies on TV meant a whole lot of censoring… which is probably why I never saw Reservoir Dogs since there was so much blood that it be hard for the networks to work around it.

That’s not arrogant at all mate, it’s your opinion. As you said, that may change upon seeing more QT films but, equally, that may not change; seeing more QT films might strengthen your opinion that Django Unchained is the most spag-like of his movies, and that would be a perfectly valid and credible viewpoint, shared no doubt by plenty of others.

Thanks, in all honesty I was just doing my best to make sure I didn’t sound like a pretentious turd is all. I have a habit of making sure my opinions have the least amount of punch as well, as I hate stirring up conflicts.

your posts indicate an awful lot of maturity and intelligence, my friend.

Well thank you! I seriously appreciate that! I only mentioned that as I figured I’m comparatively the youngest member of the forum at around 23.

I’ve seen neither but, from those trailers, my feeling is that one is a wuxia film and one is an action/horror, but both are set (in part or in whole) in the American West. So, whilst I guess one could consider them “westerns” on the time/space rule, my immediate instinct is to say that they’re not, since the western setting seems secondary and entirely incidental to what it is that each movie is trying to be. I used to have The Burrowers (Petty, 2008), Dead Birds (Turner, 2004) and Exit Humanity (Geddes, 2011) in amongst my favourite westerns - and they’d all be westerns of the 21st century too, of course - but the truth is that they’re not westerns, they’re a creature feature, a ghost story and a zombie picture, respectively. Therefore, we can amend Phil’s definitions to say that whilst all westerns need to be set in the American West circa 1850-1915, not all movies set in the American West circa 1850-1915 are westerns. Which makes sense, really; a genre shouldn’t be dictated by time and space. A film made/set in 1942 needn’t be a WWII movie, even if the war impacts upon the plot to at least some degree. A movie set in the eighties needn’t be about… um, Rubik’s cubes and leg warmers (although it’ll doubtless include both, somewhere).

Of course, if this shows us that a genre needn’t be dictated by time and space, then this must strengthen my contention that a western is dictated more thematically and instinctively than geographically. In fact, personally, I think I’m okay with shifts in location but slightly more rigid with shifts in time, which is why I’ve long-since removed No Country For Old Men from my list of favourite westerns yet Sukiyaki Western Django, Man, Pride & Vengeance and (particularly, since it’s one of my favourite westerns of all time) The Proposition remain.

I think (could be wrong here) @Farmer_J is roughly your age. I think it’s really heartening to see young men taking such a keen interest in this essemtially dead genre, and in fringe cinema in general of course (plus, it adds weight to my firm belief that spaghetti westerns are simply too f*cking cool to be resisted :slight_smile:). There was a young man on here up until only a few months before I registered, who went by the name of Silence, and my understanding is that he was maybe fourteen or so when he signed up here. And I think @Admin was round about your age when he set up his circle of websites including this one.

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I’m only a year older than you :slight_smile:

I’m also 23.

I’m not …

I was once

Cant remember if I’ve ever been that young.

Well here I was convinced that everyone here was old and grizzled, and I come to find out that I’m sharing a a forum filled with a bunch of children! :smile:

That’s really funny to be honest!

I know the feeling :slight_smile:

I’m younger :wink:

I just finished watching The Hateful Eight and wow what a beautiful picture. Samuel L. Jackson is brilliant, (even though the Tarantino style story he tells makes you wanna wince) as is Walton Goggins and Jennifer Jason Leigh, brilliant cast all round. The film has a simple story, Kurt Russell wants to hang someone and Samuel L. Jackson wants to collect his bounties. It builds from there as they end up at Minnie’s Haberdashery, a stagecoach lodge, and meet a bunch of mysterious characters there. I thought it was quite similar to The Great Silence in style and cinematography in the first 30 minutes. I wouldn’t say it’s a western for the die hard western fans. It’s obviously a western by time setting and themes etc but it’s more of a mystery crime film rather than a western, if that makes sense. It has the regular style of a western but the west outside doesn’t feature much. You could change the objectives and roles of the characters to modern day and it’d still make sense. Imagine the last 20 minutes of Resevoir Dogs, with the Mexican stand off but they had cowboy suits and guns etc. Completely regardless of what I’ve just said, I still think the movie in damn good. It’s probably one of the best films of 2015 and one of the best in recent memory. Next I need to watch Django Unchained and if it’s anything like TH8 I’ll love it. Rating The Hateful Eight 8.5/10, I think it’s a better movie than The Revenant

Ps. There’s lots of small spaghetti style nuances which everyone whom has seen it will notice without me spoiling :slight_smile:

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I had my 23rd Birthday back in Feb, but I’ve been watching Spaghetti’s since around 8 years of age. Had some on tape from my cousins I used to borrow. Since then, I’ve loved everything about them. The locations, sounds, music, and variety.

Looks like i might be the youngest, I’m 22.

I’m 21 :smirk:

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