The Searchers
1956 | Western | USA | Directed by John Ford
Overview
The darkest John Ford film interrogates the racism beneath western myth while shooting Monument Valley like scripture. John Wayne as Ethan Edwards spends five years hunting a kidnapped niece, maybe to rescue her, maybe to kill her. The doorway shots bookend cinema itself. Scorsese, Spielberg, and Lucas cite it constantly. The great American film about obsession and a homecoming that never heals.
Related Films
Stagecoach
Nine strangers ride through Apache country, and John Wayne becomes a star with one slow camera turn. Ford shot Monument Valley int...
High Noon
Gary Cooper as a marshal waits for the noon train and the killers, abandoned by the town he served. Real time structure, eighty fi...
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Three gunmen race for Confederate gold across a Civil War wasteland. Leone extreme closeups and the Ennio Morricone coyote howl th...
Once Upon a Time in the West
Leone went to Monument Valley and out Forded Ford: a widow, a harmonica assassin, a railroad, and Henry Fonda cast against type as...