or even, dare I say The Proposition which is not even remotely set in the traditional "American West".

also factor in the hollywood system changing with the film school generation Lucas/Scorcese/Speilburg etc.

Cleopatra is defined as one of the last of the overblown hollywood spectacle...from this point on, hollywood started making movies everywhere in the world and on the cheap (Easy Rider generation) The old western backlots were torn down, costumes sold off in the major hollywood auction, etc.

it got harder to find places to make them on a budget...and the cost of outfitting horses, costumes, and keeping people in locations that could pass as the west became to costly a venture for indie film makers.

I think this is important to note, although I know not all would agree. For me, while I enjoy the Old West westerns, a "western" need not be set in the Old West to classify for the genre these days. I can see similar themes, characters and plots showing up in movies such as "Seven Samurai" and "Yojimbo" (which themselves inspired more westerns) or "Serenity," or a series such as "Cowboy Bebop." Whether Old West, modern, post-apocalyptic, sci-fi, etc., I think the "western" is alive and well.

Similarly, a movie set in the Old West may not be a "western," following the conventions of other genres more strongly. Cowboys and indians and wagon trains do not immediately make the movie a genre western, just an Old West setting.

But, movies mix genres so much these days that it can be hard to nail down genres and really define them.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the one reason I always heard since the 1980s. One movie with an overblown budget that simultaneously destroyed both a studio and the Western genre...

Heaven's Gate

Damn, I was going down the thread and I thought I was going to be the first to mention it!

I don't think it 'destroyed' the genre, by a long shot. It might be overblown but the film itself is not a disaster as many perceived it. The film's most recent rerelease garnered positive critical praise.

Yes, but critical praise aside, once United Artists collapsed as a result of financing that movie, Heaven's Gate became the kiss of death to the western genre. I think no studio would go near another western until Clint Eastwood returned to the saddle about five years later in Pale Rider.

I had also heard Blazing Saddles skewered the genre's conventions so well, that Hollywood was afraid of greenlighting a serious western.

yet ironically Warner Bros. still financed Kevin Costner's post apocalyptic Western 'The Postman' and that didn't sink the studio, that was a disaster on all counts as well.

Short answer: Kevin Costner.

Blasphemy!

Kevin Costner does two things well: Baseball movies and Westerns.

It's been said that Unforgiven killed the western, because it was the anti-western western.

A lot of good points have been made, I would like to add that rise in the popularity of the mafia/gangster genre, maybe starting with Bonnie and Clyde and the Godfather, and Sci Fi movies provided a new setting for exploring complex moral codes. In addition, maybe filmmakers realized that it would be hard to top the style and substance of Leone’s films and the beauty of Ford’s Westerns. Also, Scorsese’s Taxi Driver has some similar themes to Ford’s The Searchers- again new setting but underlying subject is common.

Didn't Brokeback Mountain kill the western?

Interesting that you should point that out, since Paul Schrader, who wrote Taxi Driver, went on to make Hardcore, a modern, urban retelling of The Searchers.

How could it have? It was enormously popular.

Brokeback Mountain killed the cowboy.

I'm surprised no one has said it....but I will....

Chuck Norris killed the Western.









And not just in a joke form, but take a look at Walker Texas Ranger..............okay, so that was a joke.

Unless he does a baseball "chick flick" (For Love of the Game).

The western is still very much alive...in fact this genre is enjoying a career renaissance of sorts.

Appaloosa
Broken Trail
3:10 to Yuma
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
The Good, the Bad, the Weird
Seraphim Falls
True Grit
Cowboys and Aliens
Django Unchained

etc...

Has Seraphim Falls ever been released on BD? because it has some gorgeous photography and locations.

The Western was more or less dead by 1960. They were extremely prolific before then, at which point they became much darker. After say, 1990, every Western I've seen has been self-aware, almost love letters for the genre that used to be so popular.

I'm 32, and most people my age or younger won't even bother with Westerns because of so many old-school stereotypes. They expect to see a singing cowboy, saying lines like "giddy-up" or "ride 'em cowboy!," tropes like the schoolmarm, and not understanding how dark some of these can be.

That being said, I've had some difficulty embracing the pre-1960 Westerns. My first Western was The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, which absolutely blew me out of the water. After that I watched some similarly dark/brooding material, more Leone, Peckinpah, Eastwood. I've also loved just about every post-1990 Western. I've learnt that the darkness fits the idea of the wild country perfectly.

I recently saw The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, which was a stellar movie. But while it's one of the better movies out there, I couldn't get behind so many quaint pleasant little scenes, and particularly Andy Devine's supposedly funny voice that sounded like something out of a children's cartoon, and not something about the wild untamed violent land where a gun is the only law. The only way to sell untamed is through violence.

Also not to mention that in the older Westerns, Native Americans are often demonized as the villains. No matter how good a movie is, I have to remove myself from reality to attempt to enjoy these. Take Stagecoach for example, where you're supposed to have a blast rooting for Wayne to take out dozens of Native Americans. Great movie, featuring so much talent, but I have to talk myself into the movie, use the excuse "that was the times we lived in."

All which came out after this thread was created. I didn't care for the movie but I think Open Range played a big role in the resurrection of the genre.

And the inverse also occured with films like Dances With Wolves which, although good, sanctifies Native Americans to a ridiculous degree.

You forgot Meek’s Cutoff.

Big shout out to Dead Man for critiquing the genre.