Drama

With its unforgettably heroic story, its stunning cinematography, and acting performances that are uniformly excellent, THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER is one thrilling adventure you won't want to miss. Set during the 1880's, when the Australian frontier was as

A conventional boy-and-his-horse story set against the red rocks of remote Australian mountains. (If there's a wide-screen edition, grab it. The scenery is one of the movie's strongest features.) Tom Burlinson is Jim Craig, a young man left stranded after his father's death who is struggling to save the family farm. He proves his manhood during a hair-raising hunt over the wooded slopes in search of an escaped stallion. The great, grizzled, Australian character actor Jack Thompson (the idealistic lawyer in Breaker Morant) is the tough, older horseman who takes the lad under his wing. The director, George Miller (not to be confused with the action-master who made the Mad Max films) allows costar Kirk Douglas to mug and grimace and prance far too much in a duel role as a pair of lovable old coots who hate each other's guts. Luckily, one of the coots has a handsome daughter (Sigrid Thornton, an Elizabeth McGovern-type with grit), who also has a way with horses. So it isn't all rocks and pine trees. --David Chute

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A man in black recruits six hired guns to lead Mexican villagers against an outlaw's gang. Directed by John Sturges.

Akira Kurosawa's rousing Seven Samurai was a natural for an American remake--after all, the codes and conventions of ancient Japan and the Wild West (at least the mythical movie West) are not so very far apart. Thus The Magnificent Seven effortlessly turns samurai into cowboys (the same trick worked more than once: Kurosawa's Yojimbo became Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars). The beleaguered denizens of a Mexican village, weary of attacks by banditos, hire seven gunslingers to repel the invaders once and for all. The gunmen are cool and capable, with most of the actors playing them just on the cusp of '60s stardom: Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn. The man who brings these warriors together is Yul Brynner, the baddest bald man in the West. There's nothing especially stylish about the approach of veteran director John Sturges (The Great Escape), but the storytelling is clear and strong, and the charisma of the young guns fairly flies off the screen. If that isn't enough to awaken the 12-year-old kid inside anyone, the unforgettable Elmer Bernstein music will do it: bum-bum-ba-bum, bum-ba-bum-ba-bum.... Followed by three inferior sequels, Return of the Seven, Guns of the Magnificent Seven, and The Magnificent Seven Ride! --Robert Horton

Recounting how the West was won through the eyes of a white man raised as a Native American, Arthur Penn's 1970 adaptation of Thomas Berger's satirical novel was a comic yet stinging allegory about the bloody results of American imperialism. As a misguided 20th-century historian listens, 121-year-old Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman) narrates the story of being the only white survivor of Custer's Last Stand. White orphan Crabb was adopted by the Cheyenne, renamed "Little Big Man," and raised in the ways of the "Human Beings" by paternal mentor Old Lodge Skins (Chief Dan George), accepting non-conformity and living peacefully with nature. Violently thrust into the white world, Jack meets a righteous preacher (Thayer David) and his wife (Faye Dunaway), tries to be a gunfighter under the tutelage of Wild Bill Hickock (Jeff Corey), and gets married. Returned to the Cheyenne by chance, Jack prefers life as a Human Being. The carnage wreaked by the white man in the Washita massacre and the lethal fallout from the egomania of General George A. Custer (Richard Mulligan) at Little Big Horn, however, show Crabb the horrific implications of Old Lodge Skins' sage observation, "There is an endless supply of White Men, but there has always been a limited number of Human Beings."

Jack Crabb is the only white survivor of the Battle of Little Big Horn and the centenarian shares his story in this picaresque fable of the Old West. In Arthur Penn's adaptation of Thomas Berger's novel, Dustin Hoffman plays Jack from teen years into old age in a bravura performance. And Jack's story is a fantastic one: captured by Indians as a boy, reared as an Indian, shuttling back and forth between the white and Indian worlds. In the process, he befriends everyone from Wild Bill Hickock to George Armstrong Custer and is a gunslinger, a snake-oil salesman, and an Army scout. This is a solid blend of comedy and tragedy, with a strong statement to make about America's treatment of Native Americans without sermonizing. A terrific cast includes Faye Dunaway, Martin Balsam, and Richard Mulligan. But this show is all Hoffman's. --Marshall Fine

A former sea captain goes west, woos women and joins a water-rights fight. Directed by William Wyler. Best supporting Oscar for Burl Ives.

William Wyler directed this epic Western, about the clash of East and West, intellect and action. Gregory Peck stars as a sea captain who moves way out West to marry Carroll Baker and become part of the ranch owned by her father (Charles Bickford). But he discovers that daddy's top hand (Charlton Heston) carries a torch for Baker and doesn't particularly like Peck stepping into his place. Peck also finds himself caught in the midst of a power struggle between Bickford and his surly neighbor, Burl Ives (and his reprehensibly bullying son, Chuck Connors). This long, sprawling tale works because its characters are played by movie stars who know how to command the big screen in a big story. --Marshall Fine

• With courage, sinew and conflict: that?s how the West was won. With three directors, five interlocked stories, some of movie history?s most legendary action scenes and a constellation of acting talent: that?s how How the West Was Won was filmed. Henry Fonda, Gregory Peck, Debbie Reynolds, James Stewart and John Wayne are among the big names in this big saga following a family?s move West through g

With courage, sinew and conflict: that’s how the West was won. With three directors, five interlocked stories, some of movie history’s most legendary action scenes and a constellation of acting talent: that’s how How the West Was Won was filmed. Henry Fonda, Gregory Peck, Debbie Reynolds, James Stewart and John Wayne are among the big names in this big saga following a family’s move West through generations – marked by the spectacles of a heart-pounding raging river ride, a thunderous buffalo stampede and a bracing runaway train shootout. Via technological advances, this panoramic winner of three Academy Awards can now be seen with a resplendent, restored clarity eliminating its original "three- panel join lines" and in roof-raising Dolby 5.1 audio. Westward ho!

The first feature film to be photographed and projected in the panoramic three-camera Cinerama process, this epic Western is almost as expansive as the West itself, chronicling a pioneering family's triumphs and tragedies in numerous episodes spanning three generations and a half century of westward movement. Divided into five segments directed by veteran Hollywood filmmakers Henry Hathaway, George Marshall, and the legendary John Ford (and including uncredited sequences directed by Richard Thorpe), the film was one of the most ambitious ever made by the venerable MGM studio. Its stellar cast reads like a virtual who's who of Hollywood's biggest stars. Debbie Reynolds plays a sturdy survivor of many pioneering dangers, and the eventual widow of a gambler (Gregory Peck), who is later reunited with her nephew (George Peppard), a Civil War veteran and cavalryman who heads for San Francisco as the transcontinental railroad is being built. Many more characters and stories are woven throughout this epic film, which is dramatically uneven but totally engrossing with its stunning vistas and countless outdoor locations in Illinois, Kentucky, South Dakota, Monument Valley in Arizona, California, Colorado, and elsewhere. --Jeff Shannon

Top-rated AMC miniseries! Set in 1897, Print Ritter and his estranged nephew Tom Harte become the reluctant guardians of five abused and abandoned Chinese girls. Ritter and Harte's attempts to care for the girls are complicated by their responsibility to deliver a herd of horses while avoiding a group of bitter rivals intent on kidnapping the girls for their own purposes. Stars Robert Duvall and Thomas Hayden Church. Directed by Walter Hill (The Long Riders).

The lives of two stoic cowboys and five abused Chinese women become intertwined in Walter Hill's sprawling miniseries Broken Trail. Print Ritter (Academy Award winner Robert Duvall) and his nephew Tom Harte (Thomas Haden Church, Sideways) agree to deliver a herd of 500 horses from Oregon to Wyoming. Along the way, they rescue the young women--most of them still just girls--who're being transported to a brothel to have their virginity auctioned off. When the madam sees she is about to lose the girls, she screams at Tom, "What about my property?" He shouts back, "That's the price of being a capitalist, lady." Unable to overcome the language barrier, Print assigns numbers to the girls. Number 3, Sun Foy (Gwendoline Yeo, Desperate Housewives) is the most fearless and perceptive of them. Though the others don't want to be called Number 4--an unlucky numeral in their homeland--Ye Fung (Olivia Cheng), the most tragic of the group, doesn't care. Targeted for her beauty, she finds herself unable to overcome the trauma. The number suits her, in her mind. Along the way, Print and Tom rescue Nola Johns (Greta Scacchi), the proverbial hooker with the heat of gold, who was forced into prostitution after her husband died.

The cinematography is gorgeous as the camera sweeps over the lush landscape (the Canadian Rockies subbing in for wild West of the late 1800s) and Hill does a formidable job of pacing this 3-hour drama with just the right balance of dialogue and action. For Duvall, Broken Trail is the last piece to his Western trilogy, which started with the miniseries Lonesome Dove followed by the feature film Open Range. He is instantly likeable as a father figure and the viewer never doubts that his intention for the girls is honorable. As for Haden Church, he has never been as appealing as he is in this role. Gruff and flawed, he softens when he exchanges shy glances with Sun Foy. The trek is long and hard and the unlikely band of travelers will face much hardship. If not as satisfying as the rich, detailed Lonesome Dove, Broken Trail makes up for it with a wonderful storyline and some fine acting by all involved. As for the conclusion, it may surprise some viewers who are expecting a more traditional version of the happy ending. --Jae-Ha Kim

One of the finest westerns ever made, this "monumental, sweeping and powerful" masterpiece (Variety) features impassioned performances, stunning cinematography and adventure on a grand scale. Starring John Wayne, Montgomery Clift (in his screen debut), Walter Brennan, Harry Carey, Sr. and Noah Beery, Jr., Red River is a hard-hitting, action-packed adventure that captures the grandeur, majestyand dangerof the wild American West.Wayne gives "one of the best performances of his career" (Cinebooks) as Tom Dunson, a self-made cattle baron who'll do anything to protect his way of life. So when plummeting livestock values demand that he drive his herd through thetreacherous Chisholm Trail, Tom proves that he'll risk anything to reach his destination even his own sanity.

Any short list of the all-time greatest Westerns is bound to include this 1948 Howard Hawks classic about an epic cattle drive. Red River features one of John Wayne's greatest performances. Like his Ethan Edwards in John Ford's 1956 masterpiece The Searchers, the Duke plays an isolated and unsympathetic man who is possessed by bitterness. Wayne is Texas rancher Tom Dunson, who adopts a young boy orphaned in an Indian massacre. That boy, Matthew Garth (played as an adult by Montgomery Clift in his screen debut), becomes Dunson's assistant and heir apparent--until Dunson's temper gets out of control during a long cattle drive and Matt intervenes to stop him. From that moment on, Dunson swears he will kill Matt. Red River has everything a great Western ought to have: a sweeping sense of history, spectacular landscapes, stampedes, gunfights, Indian attacks, and, of course, Walter Brennan as Dunson's crusty old cook and comic sidekick, Nadine Groot. As a special bonus, the film also features the legendary Harry Carey (upon whom Wayne would base some of his gestures in The Searchers) and his son Harry Carey Jr., who became a fixture in Ford and Hawks Westerns. Red River is essential for anyone who loves Westerns, or movies in general. This one's a real beaut. --Jim Emerson

• Kevin Costner plays the most famous lawman ever to stride the Wild West. In a gritty, complex portrayal hailed as a "classic American performance" (Bob Campbell, Newhouse Newspapers), Academy Award winner Costner (Dances with Wolves, The Bodyguard) plays the man who became a myth in acclaimed director Lawrence Kasdan's (The Big Chill, Silverado) epic, action-filled saga. Gene Hackman, an Oscar win

Kevin Costner, Dennis Quaid, Gene Hackman. An authentic epic of the old West, with gunfights galore, tough guys and adventure-all centering around the life of the famous lawman. 1994/color/3 hrs., 10 min/PG-13/fullscreen.

This massive, in-depth study of the dark Western icon comes off with mixed results. Trying to capture the whole life, (warts and all) of the lawman-criminal-brother-fortune hunter, director Lawrence Kasdan gains points for sheer scale, giving us a rich epic painted in dark colors with gritty settings. But the visual poetry and extensive foreshadowing ruin the dramatic drive. Some scenes have as much impact as stalker movies; you're just waiting for someone to get knocked off. As Earp, Kevin Costner is not afraid to look rumpled and play colorlessly (as in The Bodyguard), but it saps the energy of this 3-hour-plus film. The only relief is Dennis Quaid as a droll Doc Holiday, a much more engaging character. New faces Linden Ashby and Joanna Going (as an Earp brother and a lover, respectively) are solid finds, though the remainder of the female cast is barely given anything to do. Best is the first half, with Costner, as hip as he was in his Silverado days, going through a series of ups and downs until he accidentally finds his profession. Great set design (Ida Random) utilizes dozens of similar settings that always look distinctive. Recommended to fans of the star and the genre, but the story never justifies its length. --Doug Thomas

By far the most ambitious, unflinchingly graphic and stylistically influential western ever mounted, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is an engrossing actioner shot through with a volatile mix of myth and realism. Clint Eastwood returns as the "Man With No Name," this time teaming with two gunslingers (Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef) to pursue a cache of $200,000and letting no one, not even warring factions in a civil war, stand in their way. From sun-drenched panoramas to bold,hard close-ups, exceptional camera work captures the beauty and cruelty of the barren landscape andthe hardened characters who stride unwaveringly through it. Forging a vibrant and yet detached style of action that had not been seen before, and has never been matched since, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly shatters the western mold in true Clint Eastwood style.

Clint Eastwood (the Man with No Name) is good, Lee Van Cleef (Angel Eyes Sentenza) is bad, and Eli Wallach (Tuco Benedito Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez) is ugly in the final chapter of Sergio Leone's trilogy of spaghetti westerns (the first two were A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More). In this sweeping film, the characters form treacherous alliances in a ruthless quest for Confederate gold. Leone is sometimes underrated as a director, but the excellent resolution on this digital video disc should enhance appreciation of his considerable photographic talent and gorgeous widescreen compositions. Ennio Morricone's jokey score is justifiably famous.

Based on the classic Wild West story "Riders of Judgment," this tale follows the Hammett brothers, who refused to yield their land to cattle barons in 1891 Wyoming. As the range war escalates, the siblings unite against the ruthless Hunt Lawton (Burt Reynolds) and discover that their greatest asset is the power of family. With Tom Berenger, Luke Perry, Adam Storke, Michelle Forbes. 180 min. Standard; Soundtrack: English Dolby stereo; behind-the-scenes footage; photo gallery; trailer.

In the tradition of Lonesome Dove and Streets of Laredo, this three-hour Hallmark miniseries ranks among the finest TV Westerns ever produced. With a deft balance of rugged action and richly drawn characters, Johnson County War captures the essence--if not the precise historical details--of the range wars that raged between Wyoming homesteaders and cattle barons in the early 1890s. Fighting for the legal settlers are the Hammett brothers Cain, Harry, and Dale (Tom Berenger, Luke Perry, Adam Storke), along with Dale's tough-as-leather wife (Michelle Forbes) and an ill-fated whore (Rachel Ward) who stands proudly against the hired gun (Burt Reynolds) who terrorizes the region for his cowardly British employers. Reynolds is too contemporary for his role, but he's a dapper villain surrounded by stooges you'll truly love to hate, and Berenger leads the excellent cast with an outstanding, lived-in performance. An actor and veteran stuntman, director David S. Cass Sr. capably serves the original script by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, bringing workmanlike intensity to several exciting chases and showdowns, all beautifully filmed by ace cinematographer Doug Milsome. --Jeff Shannon