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Westerns

Westerns and Western Subgenres in Film, Literature, and TV

Important Figures of the Western Genre

Johnny D. Boggs

Official Johnny D. Boggs Website

Max Brand

'A Farewell to Max Brand' - by fellow 'pulp author turned screenwriter' Steve Fisher

Walter Van Tilburg Clark

Nevada Writers Hall of Fame - Walter Van Tilburg Clark

Ralph Compton

Loren D. Estleman

Official Loren D. Estleman Website

Texas Monthly: Author Interview - Loren D. Estleman

Zane Grey

Zane Grey's West Society

National Road & Zane Grey Museum

U.S. National Park Service - Zane Grey

A.B. Guthrie, Jr.

Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame - Alfred Bertram “Bud” Guthrie, Jr. (1901-1991)

Ernest Haycox

Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission - Ernest Haycox (1899-1950)

O regon Encyclopedia - Ernest Haycox (1899-1950)

Dorothy M. Johnson

Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame - Dorothy M. Johnson (1905-1984)

Bilverstone, Bill (Director). (2005). Gravel In Her Gut and Spit In Her Eye [Documentary Short]. Montana PBS.

William W. Johnstone

Official William W. Johnstone Website

Elmer Kelton

Elmer Kelton's Official Website

Humanities Texas - Elmer Kelton

Louis L'Amour

Official Louis L'Amour Website

Discover Jamestown - Louis L'Amour

Elmore Leonard

Official Elmore Leonard Website

Elmore Leonard on 3:10 to Yuma published by criterioncollection on May 22, 2013

Cormac McCarthy

The Cormac McCarthy Society

Academic Writings on McCarthy from the Southwest Writers Collection & Wittliff Collections

Texas Highways - A Road Trip Through Cormac McCarthy's Texas

Larry McMurtry

Charles Portis

Encyclopedia of Arkansas - Charles McColl Portis (1933-2020)

Jack Schaefer

Santa Fe New Mexican - Writer from nowhere: How Jack Schaefer found the West within himself

Wallace Stegner

Rudolph "Rudy" Wurlitzer

The Brooklyn Rail - Rudy Wurlitzer with Theodore Hamm

Budd Boetticher

They Shoot Pictures, Don't They? - Budd Boetticher

The Criterion Collection - Some Things a Man Can't Ride Around: Budd Boetticher's Ranown Westerns

Senses of Cinema - "Don't Do Things You Don't Know About:" An Interview with Budd Boetticher

Delmer Daves

The Criterion Collection - Jubal: Awakened to Goodness

They Shoot Pictures, Don't They? - Delmer Daves

John Ford

British Film Institute - Where to begin with John Ford?

U.S. Naval Institute - John Ford

Martin Scorsese on the films of John Ford published by American Masters PBS on September 7, 2022

Burt Kennedy

Sergio Leone

Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone talk Westerns published by BBC Archive on July 29, 2023

Anthony Mann

The Criterion Collection - Darkness Visible: Anthony Mann and James Stewart's Westerns

Sam Peckinpah

Cowboys & Indians Magazine - The Western Life and Western Films of Sam Peckinpah

Taylor Sheridan

Cowboys & Indians Magazine - Taylor Sheridan

How Taylor Sheridan's Films Define the Neo-Wetsern - The Playlist

Taylor Sheridan, the cowboy behind "Yellowstone" published by CBS Sunday Morning on June 12, 2022

Gene Autry

Official Gene Autry Website

Autry Museum of the American West

Gary Cooper

Official Gary Cooper Website

Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame - Frank James "Gary" Cooper (1901-1961)

Kevin Costner

Four Western Favorites with Kevin Costner published by Letterboxd on January 18, 2025

Clint Eastwood

National Museum of American History - Clint Eastwood and the American West

British Film Institute - Where to begin with Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood: What Makes A Good Western published by American Film Institute on June 26, 2009

Walton Goggins

Vanity Fair - The Many Lives of Walton Goggins

Rolling Stone - Walton Goggins on 'Fallout,' 'Justified.' and Being Typecast as Hillbillies

William S. Hart

William S. Hart Museum

Hell's Hinges, directed in 1916 by Charles Swickard and starring William S. Hart, is considered to be one the finest silent Westerns

William S. Hart's Farewell to the Screen filmed on location at his Horseshoe Ranch in Newhall-Santa Clarita (William S. Hart Park & Museum) ©1939 William S. Hart Co. Full script available here.

Tom Mix

Oklahoma Historical Society - Mix, Thomas Edwin (1880-1940)

Arizona Department of Transportation - Tom Mix Monument along SR 79 marks end of the trail for a screen cowboy

Roy Rogers

Official Roy Rogers Website

Randolph Scott

The Criterion Collection - The Outlaw Variations: The Ranown Westerns' Finely Drawn Antagonists

James "Jimmy" Stewart

Cowboys & Indians Magazine - Movie Queue: Jimmy Stewart Westerns to Watch

The Jimmy Stewart Museum

The Criterion Collection - Winchester '73: Under the Gun

John Wayne

Official John Wayne Website

John Wayne Birthplace Museum

Peter Bogdanovich on John Wayne in "Red River" published by criterioncollection on July 9, 2014

On the Set of The Alamo from the Texas Archive of the Moving Image.

A silent behind the scenes look at the filming John Wayne's The Alamo (1960)