Movie Trailers

• Directors: Ron Howard
• Producers: Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Daniel Ostroff
• Writers: Thomas Eidson, Ken Kaufman
• Genres: Adventure, Thriller, Western
• Actors: Tommy Lee Jones, Cate Blanchett, Eric Schweig, Evan Rachel Wood, Jenna Boyd, Ray McKinnon, Val Kilmer, and Aaron Eckhart

Set in the late 19th-century New Mexico, Samuel Jones (Jones) reappears hoping to reconcile with his adult daughter Maggie Gilkeson (Blanchett). She is unable to forgive him for abandoning the family and leaving her mother to a hard life and early death. This situation changes when an Apache medicine man (Eric Schweig) and a dozen of his followers who have left the reservation pass through the area, ritualistically killing settlers and taking their daughters to be sold into prostitution south of the American border. Among those captured is the elder daughter of the family, Lily.

The U.S. Cavalry refuses to help retrieve the captive women as its resources are tied up conducting forced relocation of captive Native Americans. This leaves Maggie, her father, and the younger daughter alone in tracking the attackers. The group meets up with Kayitah, a Chiricahua, and an old friend of Jones, who also happens to be tracking the attackers with his son Honesco, because among the captives is a young Chiricahua woman who is engaged to Honesco. After the two agree to join the group, and Maggie treats Honesco’s injuries, Kayitah informs Maggie that Jones had been a member of their Chiricahua band where he gained the name Chaa-duu-ba-its-iidan (translates as “shit for luck”) during his wanderings.

It is finally with the combined efforts of the two families that they are able to free the women at the cost of Kayitah’s life and immediately flee to the mountains with the kidnappers behind them. Knowing they have no other choice but to stand their ground, the group fights off the remaining kidnappers and during the battle, Jones fights El Brujo, the one responsible for kidnapping his granddaughter, Lily. When Brujo attempts to kill Maggie, Jones sacrifices his life to save his daughter as both he and Brujo fall to their deaths. Maggie realizes her father’s love for her and finally forgives him at his death.

• Directors: Kevin Costner
• Producers: Jim Wilson, Kevin Costner
• Writers: Michael Blake
• Genres: Adventure, Drama, Western
• Actors: Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene, Rodney A Grant

The film opens during the American Civil War. In a United States Army field hospital, First Lieutenant John J. Dunbar (Kevin Costner) learns that his injured leg is to be amputated. Seeing the plight of fellow soldiers with amputated legs, Dunbar leaves the hospital, steals a cavalry horse, and attempts suicide by riding across the no man’s land between the opposing Union and Confederate positions. His action unexpectedly rallies the Union soldiers, who storm the distracted Confederate defenses to win the battle. Impressed by Dunbar’s actions, the commanding general of the Union forces, Lieutenant General Tide (Donald Hotton), summons his personal surgeon to save Dunbar’s leg. Tide declares Dunbar to be a hero and awards him Cisco, the horse who carried him in battle as well as offering Dunbar his choice of posting. Dunbar requests a transfer to the western frontier and soon after his leg heals he arrives at a fort which is a gateway to the west. This is where he begins to record his frontier experiences in a journal read in voice over.

Dunbar meets Major Fambrough (Maury Chaykin). The Major has slipped into alcohol-fueled delusions of grandeur (apparently believing he is a king and Dunbar a medieval knight). Fambrough scribbles out Dunbar’s orders to report to Captain Cargill at Fort Sedgwick and pairs him off with an uncouth drayage teamster named Timmons (Robert Pastorelli), who is to convey him to his post. After they depart, Fambrough shoots himself in the head.

…

As Dances With Wolves and Stands With A Fist leave the camp, Wind In His Hair cries out that Dances With Wolves will always be his friend. Soon after, a column of US Cavalry and Pawnee army scouts arrive to find the former Sioux camp site empty. Before the end credits, a note explains that a few years later the last remnants of free Sioux were subjugated to the U.S. Government, ending the conquest of the Western frontier states.

• Directors: Robert Rodriguez
• Producers: Robert Rodriguez, Elizabeth Avellan, Carlos Gallardo
• Writers: Robert Rodriguez
• Genres: Action, Comedy, Drama, Thriller, Western
• Actors: Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Johnny Depp, Mickey Rourke, Eva Mendes, Danny Trejo, Enrique Iglesias, Marco Leonardi, Cheech Marin, Julio Oscar Mechoso, Tito Larriva, and Willem Dafoe

The plot centers on El Mariachi (Banderas), who is recruited by CIA Agent Sands (Depp) to kill General Marquez. Marquez had murdered El Mariachi’s wife Carolina (Hayek) and child and has been hired by Mexican drug lord Armando Barillo to assassinate the Mexican President. Sands wants El Mariachi to kill Marquez after Marquez has killed the President. Sands recruits retired FBI Agent Jorge Ramirez to kill Barillo, as Barillo had been responsible for the death of Ramirez’s partner, Agent Archuleta. Sands also hires AFN Agent Ajedrez to tail Barillo.

As the plot unfolds, Cucuy and informants begin to turn on El Mariachi and Sands. On the day of the coup against the President, Sands is captured, tortured, and blinded; his eyes having been drilled out by his captors after Ajedrez reveals herself to be Barillo’s daughter. With the help of a young gum-selling boy, however, he manages to exact his revenge. Meanwhile, El Mariachi recruits his two friends, Lorenzo and Fideo, to assist him in rescuing the President. Much like Quino and Campa from Desperado, Lorenzo and Fideo also wield weapon guitar cases; in this case, Lorenzo wields a flame thrower, while Fideo has an RC Remote Bomb, which are able to destroy heavy armored vehicles. El Mariachi kills Marquez by shooting both his kneecaps and then shooting him in the head, avenging his lost wife and daughter, and goes on to assist Ramirez in killing Barillo – who falls off a balcony when El Mariachi shoots him with a lupara.

…

The movie ends with El Mariachi walking on a desert road into the sunset.

• Directors: William A Wellman
• Producers: Lamar Trotti
• Writers: Walter Van Tilburg Clark, Lamar Trotti
• Genres: Crime, Drama, Film-Noir, Western
• Actors: Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews

The Ox-Bow Incident takes place in Nevada in 1885[3] and begins with Art Croft (Harry Morgan) and Gil Carter (Henry Fonda) riding into the town of Bridger’s Wells. They go into Darby’s Saloon and find that the atmosphere is subdued, in part because of the recent incidents of cattle-rustling (the stealing of livestock) in the vicinity. Everyone wants to catch the thieves.

Gil learns that his former girlfriend left town at the start of the spring and drinks heavily to drown his sorrows. Art and Gil are possible rustler suspects simply because they are not often seen in town. The townspeople are wary of them, and a fight breaks out between Gil and a local rancher named Farnley (Marc Lawrence). Immediately after the fight, another man races into town on horseback, goes into the saloon and announces that a rancher named Larry Kinkaid has been murdered. The townspeople immediately form a posse to pursue the murderers, who they believe to be the cattle rustlers. The posse is told by the local judge that they must bring the presumed rustlers back alive for trial, and that their deputization by a deputy is illegal, but little heed is taken of this. Art and Gil join the posse as well, as much to avoid being its target as to participate. Davies (Harry Davenport), who is vehemently opposed to forming the posse because of its capacity for “mob rule”, also joins. Among the other people in the posse are “Major” Tetley (Frank Conroy) and his son, Gerald (William Eythe). The major informs the posse that three men with cattle bearing Kinkaid’s brand have just entered Bridger’s Pass, and therefore shouldn’t be too difficult to catch.

…

The men of the posse gather back in Canby’s Saloon and drink in silence. Major Tetley returns to his house and locks the door so his son cannot come in. His son yells at him through the door, telling him what he thinks of him. Major Tetley walks into another room and shoots himself. In the saloon, Gil reads Martin’s letter out loud to Art while the other members of the posse are listening. In the closing scene, mirroring the initial scene, Gil and Art ride out of town to deliver the letter to Martin’s wife and family.

• Directors: Jimmy Hayward
• Producers: Akiva Goldsman, Andrew Lazar
• Writers: Neveldine Taylor, William Farmer, John Albano, Tony Dezuniga
• Genres: Action, Drama, Horror, Thriller, Western
• Actors: Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Megan Fox

Quentin Turnbull (Malkovich) is a Confederate veteran of the Civil War who is trying to fight and re-win the war, and scarred bounty hunter Jonah Hex (Brolin) must stop him.[3]

• Directors: John Huston
• Producers: Henry Blanke
• Writers: B Traven, John Huston
• Genres: Adventure, Drama, Western, Action
• Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt, Bruce Bennett

This is the context in which the three gringos band together in a small Mexican town and set out to strike it rich in the remote Sierra Madre mountains. They ride a train into the hinterlands, surviving a bandit attack en route. Once out in the desert, Howard, the old-timer of the group, quickly proves to be by far the toughest and most knowledgeable; he is the one to discover the gold they are seeking. A mine is dug, and much gold is extracted. Greed soon sets in and Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) begins to lose both his trust and his sanity, lusting to possess the entire treasure. Dobbs is also paranoid that he will be killed by his partners. At this time a fourth American shows up, which sets up a moral debate about what to do with the new stranger. The bandits then reappear, pretending, very crudely, to be Federales, which leads to the now-iconic line about not needing to show any “stinking badges”. After a gunfight, and the fouth American is killed, a real troop of Federales appear and drive the bandits away.

But when Howard is called away to assist some local villagers, Dobbs and third partner Curtin have a final confrontation, which Dobbs wins, leaving Curtin lying shot and presumed dead. However, Curtin crawls to safety. Later, Dobbs is murdered (via decapitation) by some surviving bandits, who, in their ignorance, scatter the gold to the winds. Curtin is discovered and taken to Howard’s village, where he recovers. He and Howard miss witnessing the bandits’ execution by Federales by only a few minutes as they arrive back in town, and learn that the gold is gone. While checking the areas that the bandits dropped the gold, Howard realizes that the winds must have carried the gold away. They accept the loss with equanimity, and then part ways, Howard returning to his village, and Curtin returning home to America.

• Directors: Sergio Leone
• Producers: Arrigo Colombo, Giorgio Papi
• Writers: Sergio Leone, A Bonzzoni, Jaime Comas Gil
• Genres: Action, Western
• Actors: Clint Eastwood, Marianne Koch, Joseph Egger, Antonio Prieto, Mario Brega, Wolfgang Lukschy, Sieghardt Rupp, Benny Reeves

A Man with No Name (Clint Eastwood), arrives at a little Mexican border town named San Miguel. He is quickly introduced to the feud between two families vying to gain control the town: the Rojo brothers, consisting of Don Miguel (the eldest and nominally in charge), Esteban (Sieghardt Rupp) (the most headstrong) and Ramón (the most capable and intelligent, played by Gian Maria Volontè, who would reappear in For a Few Dollars More as the psychopathic El Indio), and the family of so-called “town sheriff” John Baxter (Wolfgang Lukschy).

The Stranger quickly spies an opportunity to make a “fistful of dollars” and decides to play both families against each other. His opportunity comes when a detachment of Mexican soldiers escorting a shipment of gold passes through the town. The gold is ostensibly being delivered to a troop of American soldiers at the border river in exchange for a shipment of modern American weapons, but upon following the Mexican troops, the Stranger watches from hiding as they are massacred by members of the Rojo gang, disguised in American uniforms and led by Ramon Rojo.

The Stranger takes two of the bodies to a nearby cemetery and sells information to both sides that two soldiers survived the attack. Both sides race to the cemetery, the Baxters to get the “survivors” to testify against the Rojos, and the Rojos to silence them. The factions engage in a fierce gunfight, but Ramon manages to kill (as he believes) the “survivors” and Esteban captures John Baxter’s son Antonio. While the Rojos and the Baxters are busy, the Stranger takes the opportunity to search the Rojo hacienda, but accidentally knocks out Ramón’s prisoner and unwilling mistress Marisol (Marianne Koch) when she surprises him. He takes her to the Baxters, who arrange for a prisoner swap with the Rojos.

…

The Man with No Name returns to town to engage the Rojos in a dramatic duel. He first rescues Silvanito, who was tortured to reveal the Stranger’s whereabouts. The Man with No Name kills Ramon and the remaining Rojos, except Esteban (who is shot by Silvanito), and rides away.

• Directors: Richard Donner
• Producers: Bruce Davey, Richard Donner, Jim Van Wyck, Alexander B Collett
• Writers: Roy Huggins, William Goldman
• Genres: Adventure, Comedy, Western
• Actors: Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, James Garner

The story, set in the American Old West, is a first-person account by a wisecracking gambler Bret Maverick (Mel Gibson), of his misadventures on the way to a major five-card draw poker tournament. Besides wanting to win the poker championship for the money, he also wants to prove, once and for all, that he is “the best”. However, complications keep getting in the way.

Maverick rides into the fictional town of Crystal River intending to collect money owed to him, as he is $3,000 short of the poker tournament entry fee of $25,000. His efforts to make up this $3,000 provide some plot motivation, as well as diversions caused by, and in the company of, three people he encounters at Crystal River: an antagonist named Angel (Alfred Molina), a young con-artist calling herself Mrs Annabelle Bransford (Jodie Foster), and legendary lawman Marshal Zane Cooper (James Garner, who played Bret Maverick in the original TV series). The first two are also rival poker players.

Maverick, Bransford and Cooper share a stagecoach (the driver of which dies at the reins at full gallop), agree to help a wagon train of migrant evangelist settlers who have been waylaid by ruffians (for a fee which Maverick in the end is too big-hearted to accept) and are headed-off by a troop of Indians led by Joseph (Graham Greene). Unknown to his companions, Joseph and Maverick are good friends, and Maverick allows himself to be “captured.” Joseph is another one of his unreliable debtors, and in and around his tribal grounds they collaborate on a scheme to swindle a Russian Grand Duke.

…

Later, Maverick is relaxing in a bath-house when Cooper finds him, and drops the facade to reveal (to the audience) that he is in fact Maverick’s father and that the real conspiracy was between the two of them. However, Bransford enters the bath-house and robs Cooper and Maverick (whose relationship she had surmised from their similar mannerisms). However, she only gets away with half of the money, as Maverick had hidden the rest in his boots. Maverick smiles and comments that it will be a lot of fun getting the rest of the money back from her.

• Directors: David Miller
• Producers: Edward Lewis
• Writers: Edward Abbey, Dalton Trumbo
• Genres: Drama, Western
• Actors: Kirk Douglas, Gena Rowlands, Walter Matthau

John W. “Jack” Burns (Kirk Douglas) works as a roaming ranch hand much as the cowboys of the old West did, refusing to join modern society. He rejects much of modern technology, not even carrying any kind of identification such as a driver’s license or Social Security card.

Burns rides up on his horse to visit Jerry (Gena Rowlands). She is the wife of an old friend named Paul Bondi who has been jailed for giving aid to illegal immigrants. Jack explains his dislike for a society that restricts a man on where he can or can’t go, what he can or can’t do.

After a violent barroom fight against a one-armed man in which he is compelled to use only one arm himself, Burns is arrested. When the police decide to let him go, he punches a cop to deliberately get himself thrown in jail so he can see Paul.

While there he incurs the wrath of a sadistic deputy (George Kennedy). Burns is badly beaten while under arrest. He tries to persuade Paul to bust out of jail, but Paul has a family and too much at stake to become a fugitive from the law, so he refuses to go. Burns breaks out by himself.

…

During the course of the story, the seemingly extraneous progress of a tractor-trailer truck, driven by Carroll O’Connor, is intercut with the principal events. The pursuit of Jack Burns comes to an end when the truck driver, vision impaired by rain, collides with Burns and his horse while they try to cross a busy modern highway.

• Directors: James W Horne
• Producers: Stan Laurel, Hal Roach
• Writers: Jack Jevne, Charley Rogers, Felix Adler, James Parrott
• Genres: Comedy, Western
• Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, James Finlayson, Rosina Lawrence

Stan and Ollie, after consorting with Seymore “Sy” Roberts, an old prospector, have been entrusted to deliver the deed to a gold mine the prospector discovered to the man’s daughter, Mary Roberts (Rosina Lawrence), a poor young woman living in Brushwood Gulch who is consistently victimized by her cruel guardians, saloon owner Mickey Finn (James Finlayson), and his equally-cruel saloon-singer wife, Lola Marcel (Sharon Lynne).

Traveling by stage coach, they attempt to flirt with the woman (Vivien Oakland) who is riding with them. She rebuffs the pair, and upon arriving in Brushwood Gulch, she complains to her husband, the town’s sheriff (Stanley Fields). The angry sheriff orders the pair to leave on the next coach out of town, or else they’ll be “riding out of here in a hearse”. Stan and Ollie promise to do so once they have completed their mission.

After dancing to “At the Ball, That’s All” by The Avalon Boys, Stan and Ollie arrive at Mickey Finn’s saloon. When Mickey Finn learns why they’re here, he has Lola play Mary in order to hijack the deed from them. Stan and Ollie have never seen Mary before, and are duped by their charade. However, before leaving town, they encounter the real Mary Roberts and immediately try to get the deed back. The evil Finns won’t surrender the deed, however, and a major struggle ensues as Stan and Ollie attempt to reclaim the deed. Stan manages to grab it, but Lola traps him in the bedroom and wrests the deed from him by tickling him into hysterics. After further chasing, Mickey and Lola manage to seal the deed into their safe. Ollie calls for the police, but the police turn out to be the angry sheriff, who chases Stan and Ollie out of town.

…

Unlike most of Laurel and Hardy’s films and shorts, the story ends with a happy ending as opposed to the usual ‘unfortunate ending’.