3:10 to Yuma (Filmstalker review) is in cinemas right now, and while it isn't genre defining, it does mark the return to the fore of the Western, something we've also seen lately with Seraphim Falls, and are to continue to see with The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and There Will Be Blood.

Yet none of these, well so far as we know so far, are genre defining, it's clear that the films that really define the Western on screen were made when the genre was at its strongest, at a time when names such as John Wayne were taking to the plains.

However there is one other name that creep into the genre for me, and that's Clint Eastwood, for who could deny that both his acting and directing in the genre have defined some key films and some iconic moments.

So to go back to the man that really controls the genre, John Wayne has a couple of serious genre rulers for me, True Grit, The Searchers and The Shootist.

True Grit sees the first appearance of one of his most famous characters, Rooster Cogburn, an often drunken U.S. Marshal and Texas Ranger who is roped into helping a young lady track down her father's killer who is deep inside Indian territory. I like the way the relationship between the hard man character and the young girl develops, and yet keeps the tough Western feel. Plus the Cogburn character is just superb.

The Searchers is a classic Western that really does start to pull in some serious reality, marking it apart from Western films before it. Here Wayne plays a character who returns home after the Civil War hoping for some peace but when he returns to his brother's ranch he finds that his niece has been captured by Comanches and so he heads out, along with his 1/8th Indian nephew, on a quest to rescue her. However as his quest continues his hatred begins to consume him, and threatens to overpower his love for his niece.

Now, The Shootist is another film that takes a different direction, it marks the last film that John Wayne was to star in and while he was making the film he knew he was dying of cancer, and that is what The Shootist is about. He's a famous gunfighter who comes to a small town to hide away and die in peace, but when people start recognising him he finds there's no way to escape his past. It's a beautiful film, made more so because Wayne only had months to live.

For Clint Eastwood there are a couple of films that are probably up there with Wayne's, and the first is undoubtedly the The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Sergio Leone's fantastic Western really does define the Western. Three men head off to get their hands on a small fortune, and they have to fight each other on the way there. The Good gunfighter of Eastwood, the Bad of Lee Van Cleef, and the Ugly of Eli Wallach provide an excellent trio of actors for the roles, and is indeed a classic.

High Plains Drifter, a story he retold in Pale Rider. A stranger arrives in town and after three men try, and fail, to kill him, the townspeople try to convince him to help them fight off a vicious outlaw and his gang who are due to arrive any day. This film is probably most memorable for two scenes, the painting of the town, and those final scenes. Here he plays the archetypal cowboy character that he'd made famous in the Leone trilogy, but here there's an extra air of mystery and power, elevating him above the townspeople as some superhuman saviour.

However for me, the greatest moment of Eastwood's film career was when he also got behind the camera and actually redefined the Western genre with Unforgiven. The film tells the story of a retired gunfighter takes one last job of his life, he promised his wife he wouldn't, but she's passed away and there is little for him in this life, little that he knows. The women in the local whorehouse are angry after one of the girls gets cut up and the local “Sheriff” does little for justice. They set out a bounty to hire some gunfighters for justice and he finds his old partner and sets out for just that, justice and the bounty.

What's so special about this is the huge amount of reality that's placed in the story, every detail has been turned to the hard facts of life in those days, from the guns to the hard slog of just getting by, and through to the real notions of good, bad and justice.

For me these films are the defining moments of the Western genre. These films are what I think of when someone talks of Westerns and cowboy films.

So apart from asking what you think of the genre defining series and what genre you'd like to hear from next, do you agree with my choices, or do you have other films in mind that would define the Western?

Other Genre Defining Features:
Political/Conspiracy Thriller
Sport
Western