The Most Underrated Westerns Ever Made

We write a lot about Westerns on this website, and sometimes you find yourself talking only about the famous ones. It can be fun dissecting The Searchers or The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, but what about those hidden gems?

What are the Westerns that are wholly unique that no one talks about?

In order to answer these questions, I made a list. Today, we’re digging past the obvious picks to examine wildly underrated Westerns that everyone should have on their watchlists.

Let's dive in.

1. The Proposition (2005)

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• Director: John Hillcoat
• Writer: Nick Cave
• Cast: Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Emily Watson, Danny Huston, John Hurt
• Cinematographer: Benoît Delhomme

Nick Cave’s script presents an impossible dilemma right at the start of the movie that actually challenges the audience. A lawman must kill his psychotic older brother within nine days, or watch his innocent younger brother hang.

Now...go!

On screen, the visuals simmer with oppressive Australian heat. Pay close attention to how light is used as an antagonist, the same way you'd see location as a character. It's the oppressive force taking each character to their boiling point.

2. Day of the Outlaw (1959)

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• Director: André De Toth
• Writer: Philip Yordan (based on the novel by Lee E. Wells)
• Cast: Robert Ryan, Burl Ives, Tina Louise, Alan Marshal
• Cinematographer: Russell Harlan

Not enough people know this movie exists, but you know who does? Quentin Tarantino. It was a massive influence on The Hateful Eight, and you can see its story jump off the screen.

We follow a town trying to hold off bandits in the snow. The winter is a nice change from desert movies, and the cold brings tension, as it's both an ally and enemry too ur heroes.

De Toth packs the frame with tension using deep focus. It demonstrates how to maintain explosive narrative momentum when your physical movement is strictly confined by budget or setting.

3. Slow West (2015)

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• Director: John Maclean
• Writer: John Maclean
• Cast: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Michael Fassbender, Caren Pistorius, Ben Mendelsohn
• Cinematographer: Robbie Ryan

How many times have you laughed at a western? Well, this dark and weird one balances that tone with a more traditional search for the frontier. The movie is kind of radical; it was shot in the ultra-vibrant 1.66:1 aspect ratio instead of standard widescreen anamorphic, and it compresses the west instead of letting it be sweeping.

It's an indie where you never feel the budget. Just the ideas on screen.

4. The Great Silence (1968)

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• Director: Sergio Corbucci
• Writer: Sergio Corbucci, Mario Amendola, Bruno Corbucci, Vittoriano Petrilli
• Cast: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Klaus Kinski, Vonetta McGee, Frank Wolff
• Cinematographer: Silvano Ippoliti

I miss when you could have this much fun and experiment with a Western. In this one, we follow a mute gunfighter in a snow-covered Utah landscape searching for justice. The whole story is basically told through his facial expressions and physical actions.

Pay close attention to Ennio Morricone’s haunting score and how Ippoliti uses handheld zoom techniques.

5. Lone Star (1996)

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• Director: John Sayles
• Writer: John Sayles
• Cast: Chris Cooper, Elizabeth Peña, Kris Kristofferson, Matthew McConaughey
• Cinematographer: Stuart Dryburgh

Sayles gives us a Neo-Western murder mystery that has real breadth. We have an investigation that spans a few generations in a Texas border town. Sayles transitions between past and present without cuts, CGI, or dissolves. The camera simply pans from a character in the present, across a wall, to reveal a scene set thirty years earlier.

It's spooky!

I love the idea that it expands the definition of what a Western can be.

Summing It All Up

These westerns are a fun ride through different countries, perspectives, and ideas of what the Old West can mean to people. They show all the facets of the genre and what it means to people all over.

Let me know what you think in the comments.