10 Best John Wayne Westerns, Ranked According to IMDb

John Wayne was one of the biggest stars during Hollywood’s Golden Age and is known for his tough, man’s man characters in classic Western films, including The Searchers, Red River, and True Grit. Known also as the Duke, Wayne started his professional career during the 1920s as an extra and prop boy before moving into small roles. In 1939, he earned his first major break when he was cast in John Ford‘s Western, Stagecoach, and soon became a top box office draw.

With a solid career spanning over five decades, Wayne is an international icon of the silver screen and, in 1999, he was named by the American Film Institute as one of the greatest male stars of classic American cinema. Out of the Duke’s eighty Western films, including The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Shootist, these are Wayne’s 10 highest-rated Westerns, according to IMDb.

10 ‘Fort Apache’ (1948)

IMDb Rating: 7.4/10

When a Civil War hero, Lt. Owen Thursday (Henry Fonda) takes command of Fort Apache in Arizona, he immediately clashes with the post’s unofficial leader, Captain Kirby York (Wayne), and the other men, who are not impressed with their new superior officer. Compared to those around him, Thursday has an ignorant view of Native Americans and, despite York’s warning, he attempts to bait them into fighting for his personal glory and puts the entire outpost in danger.

Wayne stars in John Ford’s Fort Apache alongside fellow Ford stock company star, Fonda who appeared with the Duke in several movies, including How the West Was Won and In Harm’s Way. Aside from being one of Wayne’s most popular Westerns, Fort Apache was also one of the first films to portray an empathetic view toward Native Americans and is considered to be a crucially vital film of classic American cinema.

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9 ‘True Grit’ (1969)

IMDb Rating: 7.4/10

After the murder of her father, 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Kim Darby), hires a hard-headed U.S. marshal, Rooster Cogburn (Wayne), to help her track down the man responsible for her father’s death, Ned Pepper (Robert Duvall). As they begin their journey, they meet a Texas Ranger (Glen Campbell) who is also searching for Pepper and joins them in their quest for justice.

Wayne’s performance as the iconic Cogburn in the Western classic, True Grit, earned him his first and only Academy Award win, and, in 1975, he reprised the role for the film’s sequel, Rooster Cogburn. According to John Wayne: The Life and Legend by Scott Eyamn, Wayne usually had his own screenwriter brought in to tailor his character to his persona, but for True Grit, he had faith in screenwriter, Marguerite Roberts, calling her screenplay “one of the best scripts he had ever read.”

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8 ‘The Cowboys’ (1972)

IMDb Rating: 7.4/10

Wil Andersen (Wayne) is a rough-edged rancher who is about to set out on a large cattle drive when his crew quits on him to join the Gold Rush. With no other options, he decides to hire a group of boys and train them to become cowboys. Luckily, Andersen is able to pull the boys together, but just as they are about to start making moves, a bandit spots them and hatches a plan to steal the herd.

The Cowboys co-stars future Oscar nominee, Bruce Dern and a young Robert Carradine, who is the son of actor John Carradine and brother of the late Kill Bill star, David Carradine. While the movie is a decent Wayne Western, it is known more for the off-screen bond between Wayne and co-star, Roscoe Lee Browne. The actors shared different opinions on politics and social issues, but they ended up forming a friendship over their shared love of poetry.

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7 ‘El Dorado’ (1966)

IMDb Rating: 7.5/10

A wealthy tycoon, Jason Bart (Ed Asner) hires a group of men to force a family off their property in order to purchase it for himself. The town’s sheriff, J.P. Harrah (Robert Mitchum) has developed an excessive drinking habit and struggles to protect the family from Bart’s men, but when his friend, Cole Thornton (Wayne) hears about the problem, he arrives to help Harrah get back into shape just in time for a shootout against Bart’s hired guns.

Howard Hawks’ El Dorado is one of five movies the director made with Wayne, several of them being often-recommended classic Westerns, including Red River and Rio Bravo. Both Wayne and Mitchum had previously been cast in the 1962 war film, The Longest Day, but the actors never shared any scenes together, making El Dorado the only movie where the legendary actors appear together on-screen.

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6 ‘The Shootist’ (1976)

IMDb Rating: 7.6/10

After being diagnosed with terminal cancer, veteran gunfighter, J.B. Books (Wayne) travels to visit an old friend and physician in Nevada for a second opinion. He rents a room in town under an alias from a widow (Lauren Bacall) and her young son (Ron Howard) who eventually figures out Books’ true identity. As Books gets to know the boy, he realizes the impact his actions have had on others and decides to right a few wrongs before leaving this world on his own terms.

The Shootist was Wayne’s final film performance before dying of stomach cancer three years later in 1979. The opening montage of the movie uses various scenes from Wayne’s earlier films to depict his character’s backstory, including El Dorado and Red River. His character was also inspired by The Gunfighter, a role Wayne had wanted, but turned down earlier in his career.

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5 ‘Stagecoach’ (1939)

IMDb Rating: 7.8/10

Stagecoach follows a group of strangers who are traveling from Arizona to New Mexico and are joined by a U.S. marshal (George Bancroft) who is searching for the Ringo Kid (Wayne), an outlaw who escaped from prison and is reportedly heading to the same destination as the stagecoach. The marshal apprehends Ringo, but during the course of their journey, he learns that there’s more to the young outlaw than what meets the eye.

Wayne’s role as the Ringo Kid launched the actor into stardom and today, still reigns as one of the Duke’s top-tier performances. Stagecoach is an essential film of the Western genre and is considered to be one of the most influential films of all time. In fact, Stagecoach offered inspiration to another Hollywood icon, Orson Welles, who watched the film several times while developing his signature film, Citizen Kane.

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4 ‘Red River’ (1948)

IMDb Rating: 7.8/10

After the Civil War, a cattle rancher, Thomas Dunson (Wayne), and his adopted son, Matt (Montgomery Clift) decide to move their herd from Texas to Missouri to escape the poverty-stricken South. As they make their way north, tensions grow between the father and son, and the two struggle to put aside their differences as they venture further into the dangerous and unpredictable wilderness.

Red River is another Western directed by Hawks and also pairs Wayne with frequent co-stars, Harry Carey Jr. and Walter Brennan. While Technicolor technology was available at the time, Hawks decided to film Red River in traditional black and white in order to achieve an authentic tone and style that successfully immerses audiences into the Wild West.

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3 ‘The Searchers’ (1956)

IMDb Rating: 7.9/10

After the end of the Civil War, Ethan Edwards (Wayne) returns home to Texas and discovers that his brother and his family have been attacked and murdered by Native Americans. When Edwards learns that his niece (Natalie Wood) is still alive and being held captive, he and his nephew (Jeffrey Hunter) venture into dangerous territory in search of her, vowing to bring her back home no matter how long it takes them.

The American Film Institute named Ford’s The Searchers, as one of the best Westerns of all time and is also considered to be one of Wayne’s most iconic performances. The movie has had a profound influence on award-winning filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, who based the character of Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver partially off of Wayne’s Searchers character.

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2 ‘Rio Bravo’ (1959)

IMDb Rating: 8/10

After a gunslinger, Joe Burdette (Claude Akins) kills a man in cold blood, Sheriff John T. Chance (Wayne) arrests him for murder and throws him in jail. When Burdette’s brother (John Russell) hears about what happened, he demands his immediate release or else he’ll take matters into his own hands. Despite the threat, Chance stands his ground and, with the help of some unlikely heroes, they fight to defend his post until reinforcements arrive.

Rio Bravo is considered to be Hawks’ best Western film and features an all-star cast of Dean Martin, Angie Dickinson, Ward Bond, and Ricky Nelson. Unlike other Westerns, Rio Bravo has very little action and is categorized as a “hang out” movie. The movie also features a memorable musical scene by Martin and Dean, who perform a duet of an altered version of My Rifle, My Pony and Me, which was originally featured in Red River.

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1 ‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance’ (1962)

IMDb Rating: 8.1/10

When U.S. Senator, Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) returns home to attend the funeral of his friend Tom Doniphon (Wayne), questions begin to arise about the men’s past and their involvement with a group of outlaws led by a notorious gunslinger, Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin) who used to terrorize the town. Stoddard finally agrees to recall the now-local legend and reveals details that paint an entirely different picture.

Even though Stewart receives top billing and appears in a majority of scenes, Wayne actually plays the central character in Ford’s Western, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. The following year, Wayne collaborated with both Ford and Marvin again for the colorful comedy, Donovan’s Reef, which, unfortunately, ended up being the Duke’s final Ford film as the lead.

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NEXT: The Best John Wayne Movies of All Time, Ranked