The Quiet Man (John Ford, 1952)

Starting on a modest foot, John Wayne’s fifth favourite movie of all time starred John Wayne in the lead role, was directed by his closest and most frequent collaborator, John Ford, and co-starred his best female friend in the business, Maureen O’Hara, so there’s clearly no bias to be found here.

‘Pappy’ won ‘Best Director’ at the Oscars for his elegiac drama, which was also shortlisted for ‘Best Picture’. It features what’s arguably the most overlooked performance of the leading man’s career, and despite having his issues with Herbert Yates before, during, and after the shoot, it was clearly a film that he held close to his heart. He didn’t just think The Quiet Man was one of his best movies; he thought it was one of the best in cinema history.

The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)

Continue his shy and demurring trawl through the annals of cinema history, John Wayne’s fourth favourite movie of all time also starred John Wayne in the lead role, and was also directed by his closest and most frequent collaborator, John Ford. However, The Searchers really is one of the greatest movies ever made.

When Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese call a film one of the most influential and awe-inspiring committed to celluloid, then it’s impossible to argue. It’s both Wayne, Ford, and the entire western genre’s magnum opus, and ‘The Duke’ was well within his rights to call it one of the all-time greats, because that’s exactly what it is.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Vincente Minnelli, 1962)

For his first non-John Wayne contribution to the greatest movies of all time debate, ‘The Duke’ opted for Vincente Minnelli’s sweeping drama, one of the most expensive productions ever mounted at the time, and every penny of the extravagant budget is up there for everyone to see.

Adapted from Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s novel of the same name, the dramatic epic finds an aging Argentine urging his German-born nephew to disavow Nazism on the cusp of the Second World War, all while his grandson joins a French resistance movement, setting the family up for a searing confrontation. It’s generational warfare on the grandest scale, and Wayne couldn’t get enough.

Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)

No compilation of the greatest movies ever made feels complete without Gone with the Wind, and given his obvious fondness for a ‘Golden Age’ he never wanted to end, it makes sense that Wayne would place Victor Fleming’s epic to end all epics so highly.

The movie’s credentials speak for themselves: the winner of ten Oscars from 13 nominations and the highest-grossing release of all time, by quite a considerable distance, when adjusted for inflation, it’s a vital piece of cinema history, albeit one that hasn’t dated as well as some other masterpieces.

A Man for All Seasons (Fred Zinnemann, 1966)

The most surprising thing about Wayne placing A Man for All Seasons at number one in his ranking of the five greatest movies ever made is that it was directed by Fred Zinnemann, who earned a ‘Best Director’ nomination at the Oscars for High Noon, a film ‘The Duke’ completely and utterly abhorred.

The star seethed at the Communist undertones to Gary Cooper’s seminal western, but clearly, all had been forgiven by the time he adapted Robert Bolt’s play for the screen less than a decade later. A ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’-winning classic, ‘The Duke’ was so blown away by the historical epic that he named a non-British film made by the filmmaker behind a film he despised as the best ever.