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5 Forgotten Westerns That Should Have Never Flopped

By Jeremy Smith

May 24, 2026 7:00 pm EST

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Roadside Attractions

The Western is the most durable of Hollywood genres. It's died many deaths, but it's always been reborn in different styles and flavors: revisionist, Spaghetti, Zapata, acid, and more. And the old-fashioned Western, if crafted by the right hands, is always capable of making a comeback.

Just about every filmmaker who's wielded a camera has dreamed of making a Western, while many actors have yearned to hop in the saddle or get in a quick-draw showdown in the middle of a dusty street at high noon. Michael Crichton even made a movie about regular people getting to live out this fantasy at an amusement park – and after the HBO series adaptation sputtered out, David Koepp is set to write a new version of "Westworld."

The Western mythos is powerful and universal. The genre has bounced all over the globe, but filmmakers are always dealing with the same conventions; it's just a question of whether they honor or subvert them. As is true of movies in general, when you challenge audiences, they might not show up — or if they do, they'll tell every single one of their friends to stay the hell away. This is how many magnificent, off-center Westerns have fallen through the cracks of film history. There are so many underrated Westerns that are worth seeking out, but here are five that should've performed better at the box office and with critics.

The Homesman (2014)

Roadside Attractions

Tommy Lee Jones' first directorial effort, "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada," is a modern United States border drama that, unsurprisingly, fits the gruff Texan like a well-worn Stetson. It's a terrific movie, but a lot of moviegoers couldn't help but wonder what Jones could do with a proper, period Western. They found out in 2014 when he directed the brutally unsentimental "The Homesman," in which Jones plays a land thief who's been left for dead on horseback with a noose around his neck. But the actor doesn't enter the film until 25 minutes in because this is not his story. The protagonist is Hilary Swank, who stars as a schoolteacher who's transplanted from New York to the Nebraska Territory circa 1854 in search of a comfortable life and, hopefully, a husband. Unfortunately, at 31, she's considered too long in the tooth by potential suitors.

After a harsh winter, Swank sets out on a perilous mission to deliver three troubled women to a home in Missouri run by a Methodist couple. Fearing attacks from the hostile Pawnee and other unfriendly elements, Swank frees Jones, hoping that he can help protect their party. And this is where "The Homesman" strays from its classic Western trail and takes unexpected narrative turns. Though the film received mostly good reviews, it flopped at the box office with a $8.2 million gross against a $16 million budget. Even a supporting turn from Meryl Streep couldn't juice the film's commercial or awards potential. So after a brief theatrical release, it faded from view — though you can currently watch "The Homesman" on Prime Video.

Ride with the Devil

Focus Features

Ang Lee's "Ride with the Devil" is a masterpiece that ranks among the finest Westerns and_ war movies ever made. It comes from a unique perspective in both genres: the United States Civil War, as it was fought in a guerrilla-style by Kansas Jayhawkers and Missouri Bushwhackers. As such, it doesn't fall into the stagey battlefield recreation rut that sucks in so many Civil War movies. The main characters in Lee's film are loyal to their upbringing, even when they shouldn't be. Tobey Maguire's Jake Roedel is a Missourian of German ancestry, which occasionally draws the ire of his anti-immigrant Bushwhacker compatriots (and would probably be dead if he weren't best friends with Skeet Ulrich's Jack Bull Chiles). Meanwhile, Jeffrey Wright's Daniel Holt is a freed slave who feels obliged to ride with his childhood friend George Clyde (Simon Baker), who purchased his liberation.

Chiles and Clyde are fighting to preserve the institution of slavery, while Roedel and Holt are just fighting to appease their supposed friends. For much of the film, you wonder why Roedel and Holt would accept this arrangement, but these are teenagers. Whenever we're reminded of this late in the film, you weep for the hateful waste of their youth.

For some reason, critics couldn't fully embrace "Ride with the Devil" upon its release in 1999. Perhaps this is because Lee's full cut of the film was trimmed by 10 minutes, and much of that material hammered home the brutality of the Lawrence, Kansas Massacre. Lee's cut was restored by The Criterion Collection in 2010, but there was no massive critical reappraisal. So "Ride with the Devil" remains most notable for being a $38 million production that grossed a paltry $635,096 worldwide. And this is criminal.

The Furies

Paramount

Anthony Mann was a master of the Western, and he swaggered his way into the genre with 1950's "The Furies." This is a bonkers oater that refashions "King Lear" as a battle between a mad rancher (Walter Huston, in his last film role) and his vengeance-seeking daughter (Barbara Stanwyck). Huston, Stanwyck, and character actor supreme Beulah Bondi in a Shakespearean Western scored by the legendary Franz Waxman. You do not need a roadmap. You need only to kick back and enjoy the chaos.

"The Furies" is not my favorite Mann Western (that would be the James Stewart-Janet Leigh-Robert Ryan firecracker "The Naked Spur"), but it's Mann segueing from steely films noir to a genre that would treat him well over the back half of his career. It just didn't treat him well with "The Furies." Paramount reaped a meager return on their investment, and "The Furies" rested for many years as a curiosity in Mann's filmography – especially since his immediate follow-up was James Stewart in "Winchester '73." The Criterion Collection eventually gave "The Furies" its due, but it is a truly funky movie. You can sense Mann bristling under the studio's constraints, which leads to a finale that isn't nearly as kinky as you'd like. Still, it's a wildly unpredictable ride through the sagebrush that features Stanwyck at her formidable best.

Day of the Outlaw

United Artists

Andre de Toth was a B-movie maestro, but he was exiting his Western prime when he directed "Day of the Outlaw" in 1959. As such, the modestly budgeted film wasn't technically a flop. But United Artists certainly expected a better return on their investment, and, most crucially, greater involvement from the director. The film went over-budget due to weather and Robert Ryan's health, but what wound up on the screen is exquisite.

This is one rough Western. Ryan plays a rancher who finds himself in a land dispute with new, fence-erecting neighbors that gets overheated due to his affections for his rival's wife (a pre-"Gilligan's Island" Tina Louise). But these tensions hit the back burner when a gang of outlaws led by a former Army captain (Burl Ives) rides into town, touching off a battle of wits and wills between Ryan and Ives. The gang intends to hold the settlement hostage long enough to get the wounded Ives medical treatment, but their intentions may very well be more vicious than this. And so the townspeople look to Ryan to save their homes and their lives.

Ryan and Ives are a delight as two very different kinds of violent men, and you'll see plenty of familiar genre faces like Elisha Cook, Jr., Alan Marshall, and David (brother of Ricky) Nelson. The snowbound Wyoming setting adds a chill (as does Russell Harlan's stark cinematography), while de Toth keeps the film tight at 92 minutes.

Quigley Down Under

MGM

Simon Wincer came to Hollywood after dabbling in the Ozploitation movement of the 1970s and 1980s, and quickly established himself as a capable, workmanlike director of studio programmers. Then he was hired to mount CBS' miniseries adaptation of the Western saga "Lonesome Dove," and, in a strange Hollywood turn of events, emerged as a potential big-screen auteur via a television gig.

Despite this Primetime Emmy-winning success, Wincer stuck to straightforward genre efforts, achieving his biggest commercial success with "Free Willy." But he should've scored a much bigger hit with 1990's Western "Quigley Down Under," in which he transported the oater to his home turf of Australia. The film stars Tom Selleck as the title character, a hired gun who's a deadeye with a meticulously calibrated rifle at 900 yards. Quigley is brought to Australia by wealthy rancher Elliott Marston (Alan Rickman), who's keen to use the rifleman's talents to wipe out Aborigines. Quigley angrily refuses and is cast out into the Outback with Crazy Cora (Laura San Giacomo), a quirky American with a deeply tragic backstory. You might not believe this, but Marston and his thugs will regret crossing Quigley and Cora.

"Quigley Down Under" was undone commercially by mostly tepid reviews and, well, that title. The film grossed $21.4 million against an $18 million budget, but ultimately became a modest weekend-afternoon cable success. MGM blew it by not selling Rickman's hissable villainy two years after "Die Hard." No one did baddies better, and he is in fine form here. The film isn't quite as rousing as you'd like it to be, but it's a solidly conventional Western that delivers the bullet-whizzing goods in the satisfying third act.