The 40 most popular 1990s western movies, ranked. Click any film for ratings, reviews, trailers, and where to watch.


Legends of the Fall
1994 · 2h 13m
country: United States
In early 20th-century Montana, Col. William Ludlow lives on a ranch in the wilderness with his sons, Alfred, Tristan, and Samuel. Eventually, the unconventional but close-knit family are bound by loyalty, tested by war, and torn apart by love, as told over the course of several decades in this epic saga.


Dances with Wolves
1990 · 3h 1m
country: United Kingdom
Wounded Civil War soldier John Dunbar tries to commit suicide—and becomes a hero instead. As a reward, he's assigned to his dream post, a remote junction on the Western frontier, and soon makes unlikely friends with the local Sioux tribe.


Unforgiven
1992 · 2h 10m
country: United States
William Munny is a retired, once-ruthless killer turned gentle widower and hog farmer. To help support his two motherless children, he accepts one last bounty-hunter mission to find the men who brutalized a prostitute. Joined by his former partner and a cocky greenhorn, he takes on a corrupt sheriff.


Tombstone
1993 · 2h 10m
country: United States
Legendary marshal Wyatt Earp, now a weary gunfighter, joins his brothers Morgan and Virgil to pursue their collective fortune in the thriving mining town of Tombstone. But Earp is forced to don a badge again and get help from his notorious pal Doc Holliday when a gang of renegade brigands and rustlers begins terrorizing the town.


The Quick and the Dead
1995 · 1h 47m
country: United States
A mysterious woman comes to compete in a quick-draw elimination tournament, in a town taken over by a notorious gunman.


Wild Wild West
1999 · 1h 46m
country: United States
Legless Southern inventor Dr. Arliss Loveless plans to rekindle the Civil War by assassinating President Ulysses S. Grant. Only two men can stop him: gunfighter James West and master-of-disguise and inventor Artemus Gordon. The two must team up to thwart Loveless' plans.


Far and Away
1992 · 2h 20m
country: United States
A young free-spirited Irish woman from an affluent Protestant family spontaneously befriends a street-smart commoner cheated by her family’s hostile land takeovers. They escape to America, ready to take advantage of the 19th century Oklahoma land rush.


An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
1991 · 1h 15m
country: United States
Some time after the Mousekewitz's have settled in America, they find that they are still having problems with the threat of cats. That makes them eager to try another home out in the west, where they are promised that mice and cats live in peace. Unfortunately, the one making this claim is an oily con artist named Cat R. Waul who is intent on his own sinister plan.


Dead Man
1995 · 2h 2m
country: United States
On the run after committing murder, an accountant encounters a strange Native American man who prepares him for his journey into the spiritual world.


City Slickers
1991 · 1h 54m
country: United States
Three New York businessmen decide to take a "Wild West" vacation that turns out not to be the relaxing vacation they had envisioned.


Ravenous
1999 · 1h 41m
country: Czech Republic
After arriving at his new, remote Army outpost, Capt. John Boyd and his regiment aid a wounded frontiersman who recounts a horrifying tale of a wagon train murdered by its supposed guide – a vicious U.S. Army colonel gone rogue. Fearing the worst, the regiment heads out into the wilderness to verify the gruesome claims.


Wyatt Earp
1994 · 3h 11m
country: United States
From Wichita to Dodge City, to the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Wyatt Earp is taught that nothing matters more than family and the law. Joined by his brothers and Doc Holliday, Earp wages war on the dreaded Clanton and McLaury gangs.


Last Man Standing
1996 · 1h 41m
country: United States
John Smith is a mysterious stranger who is drawn into a vicious war between two Prohibition-era gangs. In a dangerous game, he switches allegiances from one to another, offering his services to the highest bidder. As the death toll mounts, Smith takes the law into his own hands in a deadly race to stay alive.


Maverick
1994 · 2h 7m
country: United States
Bret Maverick is a gambler who would rather con someone than fight them, and needs an additional $3k in order to enter a winner-takes-all poker game beginning in a few days. He joins forces with a woman with a marvelous Southern accent, and the two try and enter the game.


Young Guns II
1990 · 1h 44m
country: United States
Three of the original five "young guns" — Billy the Kid, Jose Chavez y Chavez, and Doc Scurlock — return in Young Guns, Part 2, which is the story of Billy the Kid and his race to safety in Old Mexico while being trailed by a group of government agents led by Pat Garrett.


Bad Girls
1994 · 1h 39m
country: United States
Four former harlots try to leave the wild west (Colorado, to be exact) and head north to make a better life for themselves. Unfortunately someone from Cody's past won't let it happen that easily.


Ride with the Devil
1999 · 2h 18m
country: United States
Friends Jake and Jack Bull join up with Civil War guerrilla fighters, yet after the realities of war set in, they must decide what honor truly means.


Quigley Down Under
1990 · 1h 59m
country: United States
American Matt Quigley answers Australian land baron Elliott Marston's ad for a sharpshooter to kill the dingoes on his property. But when Quigley finds out that Marston's real target is the aborigines, Quigley hits the road. Now, even American expatriate Crazy Cora can't keep Quigley safe in his cat-and-mouse game with the homicidal Marston.


Geronimo: An American Legend
1993 · 1h 55m
country: United States
The Apache Indians have reluctantly agreed to settle on a US Government approved reservation. Not all the Apaches are able to adapt to the life of corn farmers. One in particular, Geronimo, is restless. Pushed over the edge by broken promises and necessary actions by the government, Geronimo and thirty or so other warriors form an attack team which humiliates the government by evading capture, while reclaiming what is rightfully theirs.


Wild Bill
1995 · 1h 38m
country: United States
Biopic about famous gunslinger Wild Bill Hickock. The early career of legendary lawman is telescoped and culminates in his relocation in Deadwood and a reunion with Calamity Jane.


Once Upon a Time in China and America
1997 · 1h 42m
country: United States
So goes to the U.S. to open a martial arts school. Around this time, many Chinese people were sold off to U.S. railroad companies, and were brutally treated by the Americans under the harsh working conditions. Thus, the American workers' hatred towards the Chinese immigrants is high. As a result, So gets into trouble with the Americans and the mob, and calls Master Wong for help.


Riders of the Purple Sage
1996 · 1h 38m
country: United States
Jim Lassister seeks the man responsible for his sister's death. His quest draws him into an insular community ruled by an uncompromising charlatan and his brutal riders.


The Jack Bull
1999 · 1h 56m
country: United States
When the law fails to punish a fellow rancher that has abused his horses, a Wyoming horse trader sacrifices it all in a quest for justice.


The Cowboy Way
1994 · 1h 47m
country: United States
Two championship rodeo partners travel to New York to find their missing friend, Nacho Salazar who went missing there.


El Mariachi
1993 · 1h 21m
country: United States
El Mariachi just wants to play his guitar and carry on the family tradition. Unfortunately, the town he tries to find work in has another visitor, a killer who carries his guns in a guitar case. The drug lord and his henchmen mistake el Mariachi for the killer, Azul, and chase him around town trying to kill him and get his guitar case.


Troublemakers
1994 · 1h 47m
country: Germany
Two brothers who hate themselves are going to spend Christmas with their mother. She tries to get them together.


Outlaw Justice
1999 · 1h 36m
country: Spain
In the tradition of THE WILD BUNCH and THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN comes this fast paced, action filled western with unforgettable performances by an all star cast: Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Travis Tritt and Waylon Jennings. All hell breaks loose in this riveting story when a group of former outlaws with bad attitudes teams up to catch a killer with murder and revenge on his mind. After Tobey(Jennings), a retired member of the group, is brutally gunned down by a former member and killer, Clinton Reese, our band of reformed gunslingers, Lee (Nelson, Tarence (Kristofferson), and Dalton (Tritt), sets out on Clinton's Trail. They are joined by Tobeys reluctatant young son Bryce (Willett).


Grey Owl
1999 · 1h 57m
country: United Kingdom
Archie Grey Owl is a trapper in Canada in the early 1930s when a young Iroquois woman from town asks him to teach her Indian ways. They live in the woods, where she is appalled at how trapped animals die. She adopts two orphaned beaver kits and helps Archie see his way to stop trapping. Instead, he works as a guide, a naturalist writer, and then the Canadian government hires him to save the beaver in a conserve by Lake Ajawaan in Prince Albert National Park. He writes a biography, which brings him attention in Canada and invitations to lecture in England. Before he leaves, he and Anahareo (Pony) marry. In England, his secret is revealed. Will Anahareo continue to love him?


Wagons East!
1994 · 1h 47m
country: United States
After the 1860s Wild West, a group of misfit settlers - including ex-doctor Phil Taylor, prostitute Belle, and homosexual bookseller Julian - decide they cannot live in their current situation in the west. They hire a grizzled alcoholic wagon master by the name of James Harlow to take them on a journey back to their hometowns in the East.


Last of the Dogmen
1995 · 1h 58m
country: United States
A Montana bounty hunter is sent into the wilderness to track three escaped prisoners. Instead he sees something that puzzles him. Later with a female Native Indian history professor, he returns to find some answers.


Posse
1993 · 1h 51m
country: United Kingdom
A group of mostly black infantrymen return from the Spanish-American War with a cache of gold. They travel to the West where their leader searches for the men who lynched his father.


Lone Star
1996 · 2h 15m
country: United States
When the skeleton of his murdered predecessor is found, Sheriff Sam Deeds unearths many other long-buried secrets in his Texas border town.


Tall Tale: The Unbelievable Adventure
1995 · 1h 38m
country: United States
A young boy draws on the inspiration of legendary western characters to find the strength to fight an evil land baron in the old west who wants to steal his family's farm and destroy their idyllic community. When Daniel Hackett sees his father Jonas gravely wounded by the villainous Stiles, his first urge is for his family to flee the danger, and give up their life on a farm which Daniel has come to despise anyway. Going alone to a lake to try to decide what to do, he falls asleep on a boat and wakes to find himself in the wild west, in the company of such "tall tale" legends as Pecos Bill, Paul Bunyan, John Henry and Calamity Jane. Together, they battle the same villains Daniel is facing in his "real" world, ending with a heroic confrontation in which the boy stands up to Stiles and his henchmen, and rallies his neighbors to fight back against land grabbers who want to destroy their town.


Almost Heroes
1998 · 1h 30m
country: United States
Two hapless explorers lead an ill-fated 1804 expedition through the Pacific Northwest in a hopeless, doomed effort to reach the Pacific Ocean before Lewis and Clark.


8 Seconds
1994 · 1h 45m
country: United States
This film chronicles the life of Lane Frost, 1987 PRCA Bull Riding World Champion, his marriage and his friendships with Tuff Hedeman (three-time World Champion) and Cody Lambert.


Frank & Jesse
1994 · 1h 45m
country: United States
At the end of the Civil War, Frank and Jesse James and other former guerillas who rode with Quantrill and Bill Anderson take the oath of allegiance to the Union. Feeling oppressed by Chicago railroad investors, the James and Younger brothers, Bob and Charlie Ford, Clell Miller and Arch Clements take to robbing banks, trains and coaches, with Pinkerton sworn to bringing them to justice.


In Pursuit of Honor
1995 · 1h 51m
country: United States
To save a group of horses slated to be destroyed by the US Cavalry, a group of officers rebel and begin a journey towards Canada to save themselves and the mounts.


The Hi-Lo Country
1998 · 1h 54m
country: United Kingdom
An intimate story of the enduring bond of friendship between two hard-living men, set against a sweeping backdrop: the American West, post-World War II, in its twilight. Pete and Big Boy are masters of the prairie, but ultimately face trickier terrain: the human heart.


Lucky Luke
1991 · 1h 32m
country: Italy
Lucky Luke becomes the Sheriff of Daisy Town and runs out all the criminals. Then the Dalton brothers arrive and try to get the Indians to break the peace treaty and attack the town.


The Last Outlaw
1993 · 1h 33m
country: United States
The story follows a band of former Confederate soldiers who were part of a cavalry unit. Their commander, Graff, had once been a heroic and staunch supporter of the Southern cause, but after losing his family, he became coldhearted and ruthless. His second-in-command is Eustis, whom Graff has trained on the strategies of leadership and combat command.
The 1990s were the independent film decade, when Sundance and Miramax pushed low-budget American filmmaking into the mainstream. It's also when Hong Kong action, Japanese animation, and Iranian art cinema found large Western audiences.
The Western built the visual language of American cinema, then spent decades dismantling its own myths. Its influence runs global — the Italian Spaghetti Western and the Japanese samurai film borrowed from it and fed straight back in.