westerns

Westerns are a genre of literature and film that portray stories set primarily in the American frontier during the late 19th century. They typically feature landscapes such as deserts, plains, and frontier towns, and follow characters such as cowboys, sheriffs, outlaws, and settlers. Common motifs include frontier justice, individualism, survival, and confrontations between civilization and wilderness. The genre arose in late 19th‑century American fiction with authors like Owen Wister and Zane Grey and gained mass popularity in film during the early 20th century.

In film, Westerns entered a classical era from the 1930s through the 1960s. John Ford’s Westerns helped set templates for moral complexity, community, and the landscape as a character. From the 1960s onward, the genre diversified with spaghetti Westerns produced in Italy, noted for stylistic flair and heightened violence, exemplified by Sergio Leone. Later developments included revisionist Westerns that questioned myths of rugged masculinity and manifest destiny, and neo‑westerns that transpose frontier concerns into contemporary settings, as seen in No Country for Old Men, True Grit, and Unforgiven.

Westerns appear across media, including literature, cinema, television, and video games. They have influenced other genres and popularized elements such as the lone stranger, lawmen and outlaws, gunfights, and showdowns at high noon. Critical discussion often addresses how classic Westerns reflect historical myths and can perpetuate stereotypes about Indigenous peoples, colonization, and settler violence. Contemporary works frequently pursue more nuanced portrayals of violence, cultural contact, and historical memory while preserving core motifs of landscape, code, and conflict.