Quentin Tarantino’s 10 favourite western movies of all time
It’s no secret that the American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino is a unique director with an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of world cinema. Refusing to discriminate against any genre, Tarantino consumes any movie that comes his way, whether it be the fantastically gory movies of Takashi Miike, the brutal crime dramas of Brian De Palma, or the classic westerns of Howard Hawks.
Whilst he has long discussed his favourite modern movies, it’s not often that Tarantino discusses his favourite western movies outside of his love for the Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone. Home to some of Tarantino’s all-time favourites, we’ve collated a list of the filmmaker’s top western picks, including classics of the genre as well as obscure titles that would go on to directly inspire the Pulp Fiction director’s own movies.
When it comes to those films that have had quite an obvious imprint on Tarantino’s life, the clearest pick is the 1966 movie Django by Italian director Sergio Corbucci. Later becoming the source of inspiration for Tarantino’s own 2012 movie Django Unchained, starring Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz, the original film tells the story of a gunslinger and sex worker who become tied up in a band of Southern racists.
Elsewhere, Tarantino once revealed three of his favourite western movies, stating: “If I had to pick my three favourite Westerns, they would be Rio Bravo, number one; The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, number two; and One-Eyed Jacks, number three”. Having long admired the final film in Leone’s Dollars trilogy, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Tarantino names the movie alongside his all-time favourites, regardless of genre, rubbing shoulders with Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and Brian De Palma’s Blow Out.
More recently, Tarantino revealed his fondness for Peter Fonda’s Hired Hand, telling Roger Avary on his Video Archives podcast that he thought the 1971 movie was “terrific”. In the very same episode, the director named Robert Aldrich’s 1972 film Ulzana’s Raid “my very favourite western of the 1970s,” largely thanks to the Scottish screenwriter Alan Sharp who penned the script, whom Tarantino also calls a “favourite”.
A lover of the genre, Tarantino has also shared his fondness for Sergio Corbucci’s The Hellbenders, Arthur Penn’s Little Big Man, starring Dustin Hoffman and Anthony Mann’s Winchester ’73.
Helping to sculpt American cinema throughout the early 20th century, the western genre was championed by the likes of Howard Hawks, John Ford and Clint Eastwood, and later morphed into the sci-fi genre in the late 1970s thanks to the release of George Lucas’ Star Wars. Featuring the narrative trope of the hero’s journey, as well as sprawling deserted wastelands, Lucas’ movie was a cinematic game-changer.
Take a look at the full list of Quentin Tarantino’s ten favourite western movies below.
Quentin Tarantino’s 10 favourite western movies
- Django (Sergio Corbucci, 1966)
- The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966)
- The Hellbenders (Sergio Corbucci, 1967)
- The Hired Hand (Peter Fonda, 1971)
- Little Big Man (Arthur Penn, 1970)
- Navajo Joe (Sergio Corbucci, 1966)
- One-Eyed Jacks (Marlon Brando, 1961)
- Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks, 1959)
- Ulzana’s Raid (Robert Aldrich, 1972)
- Winchester ’73 (Anthony Mann, 1950)
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