CineBrawlBest western
The 16 movies of the “Best western” bracket, with year, director, runtime and rating for each — then play the knockout tournament and let your own duels pick the winner.
▶ Play this tournamentWhat is in this bracket
The bracket spans 64 years of cinema, from 1952 to 2016, with an average TMDB rating of 7.6/10. The dominant genres are Western (16 movies), Drama (8 movies), Adventure (5 movies), Crime (2 movies). Sergio Leone appears 3 times, Quentin Tarantino appears 2 times — a good sign of how much one filmography weighs on the outcome. Watching the whole line-up back to back would take about 36 hours. The 2010s are the best represented decade with 7 entries.
The highest-rated entry going in is The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) at ★ 8.5/10 — but a bracket is not a ranking: it only takes one duel against a favourite of yours for it to go out in the first round.
The full line-up (16 movies)
Seeded in the order they enter the bracket. 16 titles means 4 rounds and 15 duels to a champion.
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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
While the Civil War rages on between the Union and the Confederacy, three men – a quiet loner, a ruthless hitman, and a Mexican bandit – comb the American Southwest in search of a strongbox containing $200,000 in stolen gold.
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Once Upon a Time in the West
As the railroad builders advance unstoppably through the Arizona desert on their way to the sea, Jill arrives in the small town of Flagstone with the intention of starting a new life.
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Unforgiven
William Munny is a retired, once-ruthless killer turned gentle widower and hog farmer. To help support his two motherless children, he accepts one last bounty-hunter mission to find the men who brutalized a prostitute. Joined by his former partner and a cocky greenhorn, he takes on a corrupt sheriff.
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Django Unchained
With the help of a German bounty hunter, a freed slave sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.
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The Searchers
As a Civil War veteran spends years searching for a young niece captured by Indians, his motivation becomes increasingly questionable.
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High Noon
Will Kane, the sheriff of a small town in New Mexico, learns a notorious outlaw he put in jail has been freed, and will be arriving on the noon train. Knowing the outlaw and his gang are coming to kill him, Kane is determined to stand his ground, so he attempts to gather a posse from among the local townspeople.
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True Grit
Following the murder of her father by a hired hand, a 14-year-old farm girl sets out to capture the killer. To aid her, she hires the toughest U.S. Marshal she can find—a man with 'true grit'—Reuben J. 'Rooster' Cogburn.
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Dances with Wolves
Wounded Civil War soldier John Dunbar tries to commit suicide—and becomes a hero instead. As a reward, he's assigned to his dream post, a remote junction on the Western frontier, and soon makes unlikely friends with the local Sioux tribe.
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A Fistful of Dollars
The Man With No Name enters the Mexican village of San Miguel in the midst of a power struggle among the three Rojo brothers and sheriff John Baxter. When a regiment of Mexican soldiers bearing gold intended to pay for new weapons is waylaid by the Rojo brothers, the stranger inserts himself into the middle of the long-simmering battle, selling false information to both sides for his own benefit.
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The Hateful Eight
Bounty hunters seek shelter from a raging blizzard and get caught up in a plot of betrayal and deception.
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No Country for Old Men
Llewelyn Moss stumbles upon dead bodies, $2 million and a hoard of heroin in a Texas desert, but methodical killer Anton Chigurh comes looking for it, with local sheriff Ed Tom Bell hot on his trail. The roles of prey and predator blur as the violent pursuit of money and justice collide.
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Hell or High Water
A divorced dad and his ex-con brother resort to a desperate scheme in order to save their family's farm in West Texas.
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The Revenant
In the 1820s, a frontiersman, Hugh Glass, sets out on a path of vengeance against those who left him for dead after a bear mauling.
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The Magnificent Seven
Looking to mine for gold, greedy industrialist Bartholomew Bogue seizes control of the Old West town of Rose Creek. With their lives in jeopardy, Emma Cullen and other desperate residents turn to bounty hunter Sam Chisolm for help. Chisolm recruits an eclectic group of gunslingers to take on Bogue and his ruthless henchmen. With a deadly showdown on the horizon, the seven mercenaries soon find the
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Rango
When Rango, a lost family pet, accidentally winds up in the gritty, gun-slinging Western town of Dirt, the theater-loving lizard suddenly finds himself the newly appointed sheriff. Welcomed as the last hope the town has been waiting for, Rango is forced to play his new role to the hilt and uncover the truth behind a looming water crisis—before his act catches up with him.
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The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Outlaw Jesse James is rumored to be the 'fastest gun in the West'. An eager recruit into James' notorious gang, Robert Ford eventually grows jealous of the famed outlaw and, when Robert and his brother sense an opportunity to kill James, their murderous action elevates their target to near mythical status.
How this tournament works
- 16 movies enter a knockout bracket.
- Two titles face off at a time — you pick the one you would rather watch.
- Winners advance round by round until one champion is left: your pick for tonight.
There is no “right” answer and no algorithm deciding for you: the bracket only forces a series of small, easy comparisons instead of one impossible choice in front of a catalogue. You can also play it with friends — everyone votes the same duels from their own phone in a Brawl Room.
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