Credit: Far Out / Alamy

The John Wayne movies John Wayne hated most of all

Wed 8 October 2025 19:32, UK

He may well be regarded as one of the most divisive characters in cinematic history today, but away from his unwelcome personal and political traits, the storied career arc of John Wayne is impressive.

Starting out as a bit-part player, Wayne would soon rise to the top of Hollywood, becoming an icon of the western genre and working with some of the greatest directors of the 20th century. It is a career trajectory that very few can hope to emulate. But not everything would end up as rosy.

Sadly, in the 21st century, revelations about his character and lack of tolerance have left him a beleaguered figure. Despite having worked with greats like Howard Hawks and his longtime friend John Ford and taken on characters such as Jacob McCandles from Big Jake, Ringo Kid from Stagecoach and his Oscar-winning turn as Rooster Cogburn in True Grit, the image of Wayne is now left as a cankerous conservative man unwilling to change for the times or see the humanity in the evolving world.

As well as a willingness to label anything from the world of Hollywood that he didn’t entirely agree with as perverse, the actor was also routinely hostile to any changes that didn’t align with his all-American vision for cinema. It meant movies like The Graduate were lambasted, and actors like Clint Eastwood were seen as almost satanic. It was a style of approach to society that would not align with the progressive views that followed his day and age.

Wayne positioned himself as a figure that seemed to be slowly deteriorating. However, if you assumed that Wayne saved his vibrant distaste for only the work of others, you’d be wrong. The legend of westerns wasn’t a huge fan of a whole host of the movies he made, with seven, in particular, that really got under his skin.

John Wayne - Actor - 1935 — Credit: Monogram Pictures Corporation

Wayne shared his dislike for a selection of his own movies but for very different reasons. The first set of movies he thought belied his watermark of greatness was a set of films he made with Warner Bros. The six western feature films, which Wayne would describe as “horse operas” and included his debut, The Big Trail, would set the actor on his trajectory to the top of the genre’s growing stardom. However, they were not without their issues.

A flimsy story usually followed each picture, and Wayne named ‘John’ in every picture. Wayne was paid $1,500 per movie, but despite them giving him a push into the direction of the legendary status he would achieve, he would soon tarnish the legacy of the movies made by Looney Tunes producer Leon Schlesinger.

“I later thought Leon’s cartoons were better than the horse operas he put me in,” Wayne stated in John Wayne: The Man Behind the Myth, “Those westerns I made at Warner Bros. were remakes of old Ken Maynard films, and all the big scenes like cattle herds and Indian attacks were taken straight from the original Maynard films.”

“So, I had to dress up to look like Ken Maynard because a lot of the old footage they inserted had shots of Maynard in the distance,” explained Wayne. For an artist with such a prominent sense of self, the idea of pretending to be another actor did not resonate: “I really hated that,” he confirmed.

While that movie irked Wayne because of the production, there is one feature film that he simply hated. The Conqueror is one movie that most people would want to forget. In addition to the awkward casting of Wayne as Ghengis Khan, the former Khagan of the Mongol Empire, it was also terribly produced, featured wholly inaccurate historical moments, and was ravaged by on-set safety issues. It was said that Wayne would “visibly shudder” if the movie was ever mentioned in his presence, later offering the advice “not to make an ass of yourself trying to play parts you’re not suited for.”

It gets worse, too. Wayne’s health vastly deteriorated under the tough working schedule with Dick Powell choosing to shoot The Conqueror in the desert of Utah. A notoriously radioactive area of the US 91 of the cast and crew would later pass away following complications with cancer.

He may well have been an unsightly figure by the end of his tenure as one of Hollywood’s leading men, rarely allowing himself to accept change or enjoy the evolving world around him, but at least he held himself to a similarly high standard.