Theme: Westerns

Westerns refer to the genre of films that take as their setting the American West (also known as the Wild West), historically located between 1865-1895 during the period when the North American frontier was being settled.

Cinema of the 20th Century turned the six-gun toting cowboy into a hero. By the 1920s and 30s, the Western had become a major film genre and continued that way for several decades, branching out into television in the 1960s. The genre largely died away in the 1980s, although there have been sporadic revivals, notably the revisionist Westerns of the 1990s/2000s.

Westerns featured simple horse adventures on the frontier, black-and-white heroes saving the damsel, tracking down the outlaws, fighting off incursions of the Indians, the quickdraw shootout on the main street.

There have been numerous genre crosshatches with the Western including cowboys vs vampires, werewolves, aliens and zombies; Westerns relocated into outer space and the post-apocalyptic terrain; time travellers going back to the West; and Western ghost stories, among others.

For more detail and an overview of the genre see the Theme Essay Weird Westerns.