The John Wayne movie Quentin Tarantino calls “the greatest”
The love Quentin Tarantino has for the western film genre is beyond belief, and it’s a passion that crops up regularly in his own movies. In Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight, Tarantino paid homage to the kind of dusty prairies, characters of moral dubiousness and the themes of revenge and redemption that so often epitomised the best films of the old west.
It’s well known that Tarantino is just about the biggest fan of Sergio Leone and his Dollars Trilogy movies and has said several times that The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is amongst his favourite movies of all time, but the director’s western love doesn’t end there, as he also admires several other classic films from the genre.
One can’t talk about westerns without bringing up the legacy of John Wayne, and Tarantino once named the Wayne-starring movie he considers “the greatest”. Wayne starred in The Searchers, Stagecoach, Red River and True Grit, as well as many other acclaimed pictures, but the top of the pile for Tarantino is Rio Bravo.
“I actually got a headache trying to contemplate how many times I have watched this movie,” Tarantino said, introducing the film in 2007. “I can only remember the first time I saw it, which was when I was about five years old, and I watched it with my great-grandmother. I love it, she loved it, and it was funny because I discovered it later on my own when I was getting into Howard Hawks.”
He continued: “I watched Rio Bravo and thought, ‘Wait a minute, that’s the movie I saw with my great-grandma.’ There are all kinds of things that are so wonderful, yes it’s one of the greatest westerns, yes it’s one of the greatest John Wayne movies, yes it’s one of the greatest Howard Hawks films, but it also fits into another genre, it’s one of the great hangout movies.”
Rio Bravo was released in 1959 and remains a true classic of the western genre, praised for its story, character building and overall tension. John Wayne plays the titular town’s sheriff, John T. Clance, who must hire a rag-tag bunch of allies to help fend off a malicious rancher and his gang of hired mercenaries.
Going on to explain his subgenre for Rio Bravo, Tarantino said: “There are certain movies when you hang out with the characters so much that they actually become your friends. It’s a really rare quality to have in a film, and usually, those movies are quite long because it takes that long to get past the movie character where you feel like you know the person and you like them”.
“Rio Bravo is one of the greatest hangout movies of all time,” Tarantino added. “When it’s over, they’re your friends. What’s good about seeing it again and again is that now they’re already your friends. Whenever you’re watching it, you’re just hanging out.”
Never Miss A Take
The Far Out Quentin Tarantino Newsletter
All the latest Quentin Tarantino content from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.