10 Greatest Lawmen In Western Movies
The biggest trope in classic Westerns is for a lawman in an out-of-control Old West town to battle outlaws and cattle barons to save the people from an otherwise lawless situation. This has resulted in countless idealized lawmen in Westerns over the years. However, revisionist Westerns subverted the trope, with often corrupt lawmen as the villains. Whatever the Western type, there have been some incredibly drawn lawmen in Westerns, on both sides of the spectrum. This includes Western icons like John Wayne, Gary Cooper, and Clint Eastwood, as well as modern Western stars like Gene Hackman and Kurt Russell. In any case, the best Western lawmen remain a staple of the genre.
Sheriff Bart, Blazing Saddles
Gene Wilder as Jim the Waco Kid with his arm around Cleavon Little as Bart in Blazing Saddles
Not all Western lawmen are in serious movies. In fact, one of the best Western lawmen was in a broad comedy that made fun of both the genre and Hollywood in general. Mel Brooks released Blazing Saddles in 1974 and brilliantly played with the tropes and motifs, coming away with what was one of the best Westerns of the 70s. The lawman in this movie was Bart, played by Cleavon Little. He was a railroad worker whom the local corrupt attorney general named sheriff, believing he would be easy to manipulate to push people out of the town so he could run his railroad through it. What he never expected was for Bart to team with a gunslinger named the Waco Kid (Gene Wilder). What makes Bart such a great Western lawman is that he wouldn’t let people push him around. In the face of racist townspeople who would rather be destroyed than accept a Black man in charge, he still fought a good fight and saved the town anyway. When he leaves at the end, it is perfect since he saved people who didn’t really deserve it.
Ed Tom Bell, No Country For Old Men
Tommy Lee Jones as Ed Tom Bell in the final sequence of the 2007 movie No Country For Old Men
Ed Tom Bell is an unusual lawman in No Country for Old Men because he is determined to solve a series of murders that make little sense, and one that he knows he isn’t likely to solve. Tommy Lee Jones plays Bell with a perfect sense of world weariness and the knowledge that almost nothing he does will fix society’s problems. The movie is about a hitman sent by an organized crime organization to retrieve stolen money from a man who just happened to find it at the scene of a shootout. This assassin, Anton Chigurh, kills countless people on his journey, and Ed Tom Bell seems lucky at the end of the movie that he never crossed paths with this brutal murderer. What makes him such a brilliant character is that the scenes he appears in are nice breaks in the brutal violence that the Coen Brothers constructed. By the end, when Bell decides to retire, it is a sobering look at how the violence of the Westerns can break down even the best lawmen.
U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves, The Harder They Fall
Bass Reeves stands with Nat Love and Beckwourth on a dusty street in The Harder They Fall
The Harder They Fall is a movie that follows several real-life characters from Western mythology and history and then places them in a fictional story. The main characters here are Wild West outlaws like Nat Love, Rufus Buck, Stage Coach Mary, Cherokee Bill, and more. It also includes a famed Western lawman named Bass Reeves. In real life, Bass Reeves was an escaped enslaved person who went on to become a deputy U.S. Marshal and gunfighter. Of course, as a Black lawman, he also faced racism and persecution in the Old West. In The Harder They Fall, Delroy Lindo stars as Bass Reeves, and he works with outlaws to bring in a bigger criminal. This was one of many on-screen appearances for Bass Reeves, including a 2019 action film called Hell on the Border and the Taylor Sheridan television series called Lawman: Bass Reeves, with David Oyelowo starring as the Western lawman.
Little Bill Daggett, Unforgiven
Gene Hackman as Little Bill in Unforgiven
Little Bill Daggett is a Western lawman who ends up being the antagonist of the Oscar-winning revisionist Western, Unforgiven. Played by Gene Hackman, Little Bill is the sheriff of a small Western town who rules with an iron fist. He is violent and dangerous and is willing to kill any outlaw to make a point. What makes this Western masterpiece so interesting is that the “hero” here is a retired outlaw and gunslinger who admits he has killed men, women, and children in his past. However, he has since retired and only comes out when Little Bill arrests and beats an old friend of his to death and then parades the dead body in front of a saloon for all to see. While playing a villainous role, Gene Hackman received high praise for his performance as the Western lawman, and he won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
Sam Deeds, Lone Star
Chris Cooper as Sheriff Sam Deeds in Lone Star
Lone Star is a 1996 neo-Western that takes place in a more modern version of the West. Chris Cooper is a sheriff named Sam Deeds who is investigating the discovery of a human skeleton that was found with a Masonic ring, an old sheriff’s badge, and the sign that the body was killed with a 45 caliber bullet. Taking place in a small town in South Texas, this is a case where a Western lawman has to deal with a crime that might implicate not only his own police department’s historical lawmen, but also someone who had a strong connection to his own career and rise in law enforcement. The best thing about Lone Star is that this is an independent Western movie by John Sayles, and it has a lot to say about corruption, small-town secrets, and one police officer who will do what needs to be done to find justice, even if it means bringing down a local legend.
Rooster Cogburn, True Grit
John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn in True Grit
True Grit holds a special place in the career of John Wayne as one of the Western genre’s biggest stars. It was the only time that Wayne won an Oscar for his performance, as he played an old lawman whom a little girl hires to hunt down the man who killed her father. Wayne plays Rooster Cogburn, a one-eyed U.S. Marshal. The movie also stars Glen Campbell as Texas Ranger La Boieuf, but it is John Wayne’s Rooster Cogburn who steals the show. Wayne called Rooster Cogburn his first great role in 20 years, and he gave his all as the veteran lawman who was willing to do anything he could to help the young girl. The Coen Brothers remade True Grit decades later with Jeff Bridges in the role of Rooster Cogburn, and it proves once again how great this Western lawman was. However, for all intents and purposes, John Wayne did it the best.
Jed Cooper, Hang ‘Em High
Clint Eastwood showing his neck scar in Hang ‘Em High.
Clint Eastwood mainly played outlaws and gunslingers during his time at the top of the Western genre. However, there was one early movie where he played both. In Hang ‘Em High, Eastwood played Jed Cooper, a retired lawman who was falsely accused of rustling cattle, and he was lynched and hanged by a posse of nine men. A local marshal found and saved him, and the territorial judge asked him not to seek vengeance, but to be reinstated as a marshal to bring the nine men in to stand trial for the lynching. The film sees Jed Cooper set out to arrest the nine men, and not all of them made it back to the trial alive. However, at the end of the day, Jed remains an honorable lawman and only kills any of the men when they fire on him first. The film is also a nuanced look at frontier justice, where Jed disagrees with hanging all the men responsible, when not all of them agreed with the original attack.
Wyatt Earp, Tombstone
Kurt Russell as Wyatt Warp aiming a gun in Tombstone
One of the best modern-day Westerns for mainstream audiences arrived in the 1990s with Tombstone. This was a retelling of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, where Wyatt Earp and his brothers had a showdown with the Cowboys terrorizing Tombstone, Arizona. Kurt Russell played Wyatt Earp in this telling of the story. While Val Kilmer stole the show as gunfighter Doc Holliday, Russell stood tall as Wyatt Earp, a man who was fiercely loyal to his brothers and his friend Doc, and who was not scared to stand up to the evil men in his new hometown. It should be noted that some consider the 1946 classic Western, My Darling Clementine, as the seminal Wyatt Earp movie. However, that John Ford film took significant liberties with the Earp story, and Tombstone remains the more entertaining retelling of the story of the Earp brothers.
John T. Chance, Rio Bravo
John Wayne as John Chance looking down in Rio Bravo
The 1959 Howard Hawks Western Rio Bravo has an interesting backstory. John Wayne had rejected the lead role in High Noon because he felt the movie had a Communist message and felt the sheriff and townspeople sent the wrong message about the Old West. Instead, John Wayne starred in Rio Bravo as a response to High Noon. In this movie, Wayne stars as John T. Chance, a Western lawman who arrests an outlaw and holds him until the stagecoach can arrive to take him to trial. However, when the man’s gang arrives for a breakout attempt, Chance has to defend his jail along with some townspeople arriving to help and hold them off until help arrives. This gave John Wayne a chance to show how a group of people can stand together against evil men and protect their town. The movie was later remade as an action movie called Assault on Precinct 13.
Will Kane, High Noon
Gary Cooper walks down the city street in High Noon
While John Wayne refused the role, Gary Cooper took on the High Noon lead role as Marshal Will Kane, a man who was preparing for retirement after serving a small town in New Mexico for years. He had just gotten married and was ready to enjoy his later life with his new wife when a man he had arrested years ago was released from jail. That man decides to come gunning for Will Kane for revenge and has his old gang backing him on it. What John Wayne hated the most was that the townspeople whom Will Kane had protected for years refused to help him, and they left him on his own to deal with the fugitive. Wayne felt this was unrealistic, but it made Will an even more determined lawman. By the end, Will Kane did what he needed to do to protect the town one last time and make it out alive. When he drips his marshal’s star into the street at the end and leaves with his wife, it was a sharp message to people who take their Western lawmen for granted. Gary Cooper won an Oscar for his performance.
已发布: 2025-12-14 00:00:00
来源: screenrant.com
