Western

Arizona Territorial Prison inmate Paris Pittman is a schemer, a charmer and quite popular among his fellow convicts - especially with $500,000 in stolen loot hidden away and a plan to escape and recover it. New Warden Woodward Lopeman has other ideas about Pittman. Each man will have the tables turned on him. Academy Award winner Joseph L. Mankiewicz cleverly lassoes a twisting, turning Wild West tale of brawls, chases, shootouts and wry wit, courtesy of a script by David Newman and Robert Benton (Bonnie and Clyde).

First screened in Europe and scheduled for limited release in the U.S., Bandidas can now be viewed by all fans of the visually stunning duo, Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek. Set in Mexico 1888, Bandidas is a Western spoof about two women, Maria Alvarez (Penelope Cruz) and Sara Sandoval (Salma Hayek), who seek to avenge the tragedies befallen both their fathers under robber baron, Tyler Jackson (Dwight Yoakam). Jackson, employed by the Bank of New York, is sent to Mexico to buy land and open banks to the detriment of local culture.

The lives of two stoic cowboys and five abused Chinese women become intertwined in Walter Hill's sprawling miniseries Broken Trail. Print Ritter (Academy Award winner Robert Duvall) and his nephew Tom Harte (Thomas Haden Church, Sideways) agree to deliver a herd of 500 horses from Oregon to Wyoming. Along the way, they rescue the young women--most of them still just girls--who're being transported to a brothel to have their virginity auctioned off.

One of the best action movies ever made, in a cleaned-up print restoring crucial parts of the story. No cavalry ever rode in with more epochal impact than the Wild Bunch in the legendary opening scene. Their steel-eyed leader, Pike (William Holden), and his robbers in stolen army uniforms help an old lady across the street, and then spark a massacre led by Pike's old crony Thornton (Robert Ryan), sprung from jail to hunt down his old gang.

The saga of Tom Horn - a real-life "enforcer" of Old West days - held a particular fascination for another legend. Hollywood icon Steve McQueen starred in and executive-produced what would be his next-to-last movie, a gritty, exciting recreation of Horn's latter-day career in a turn-of-the-century West where gentler ways supplanted the law of the gun - and Horn would be an unwitting victim of that change. Linda Evans, Richard Farnsworth, Billy Green Bush and Slim Pickens head a strong cast in a film capturing the essence of a time when a man's word was only as good as his guns or fists.

From Western legend Sergio Leone (The Good, The Bad and The Ugly) comes a rollicking shoot-'em up! Young, ambitious gunman Nobody (Terence Hill) sets his eye on his idol, gunslinger Jack Beauregard (Henry Fonda), who's intent on sailing off into retirement. Deciding his hero should go out with guns blazing, Nobody sets him up for a showdown with a pack of the deadliest bad guys in the West, triggering an unforgettable finale that's become an action comedy legend!

Director Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill) clearly set out to make an old-fashioned Western, but he couldn't help bringing a hip, self-conscious attitude to the proceedings. Silverado thus finds its own funky tone--sometimes rousing, sometimes winking. Four cowpokes converge on a little Western burg called Silverado; they're played by Kevin Kline (a distinctly modern kind of Western hero), Scott Glenn, Danny Glover, and the rowdy young Kevin Costner.

This Western has become a modest cult favorite since its release in 1993, when the film was met with mixed reviews but the performances of Kurt Russell (as Wyatt Earp) and especially Val Kilmer, for his memorably eccentric performance as the dying gunslinger Doc Holliday, garnered high praise. The movie opens with Wyatt Earp trying to put his violent past behind him, living happily in Tombstone with his brothers and the woman (Dana Delany) who puts his soul at ease. But a murderous gang called the Cowboys has burst on the scene, and Earp can't keep his gun belt off any longer.

Long before Unforgiven deconstructed the Western, or Blazing Saddles lampooned it, Cat Ballou poked the genre in the eye. An altogether enjoyable comedy, the film is full of small surprises, big laughs, and wonderful character turns. Catherine Ballou (Jane Fonda) is a schoolteacher until a hired thug kills her daddy. To protect what she loves, she collects two petty criminals, a wisecracking hired hand, and a hired killer, Kid Shelleen (Lee Marvin). Unfortunately, Shelleen is a raging drunk who is so inebriated and unsteady with a gun he literally misses the broad side of a barn.

Welcome to Redemption, your typical old west town. Herod, played by Gene Hackman, is in the villain role, which befits his talents well. Herod is a long time criminal who controls Redemption from the ground up. He's arranged for a "Quick Draw" contest for gunslingers. Ellen, played superbly by the ever beautiful Sharon Stone comes to town with more than just a quick draw competition on her mind. Cort, played by the then burgeoning superstar, Russell Crowe is a former outlaw and friend of Herods, who has found the lord.