These aren’t your father’s, or grandfather’s Westerns. While there are many Western classics to be had from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, there have been some more recent entries to the field that can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the greats of many decades past.
Hidalgo (rated PG-13, avg review rating 5/5 stars, $1.99 for the Instant Video rental) recalls the epic adventure tales of old. In it, Viggo Mortensen portrays a down-on-his-luck cowboy who travels to Arabia to compete in a race across the unforgiving desert. One Amazon reviewer says:
This movie was exciting and it took you on a long journey–a quality common to many of the good ones, you feel like you’ve been on a great adventure. It was not a children’s movie, if it was I wouldn’t have been able to take it, but you could watch it with your kids and not have to worry about it. And I’m by no means a sentimental teary eyed person, but one of the end scenes made me catch my breath and that scene stuck with me even though I saw it about 8 years ago.
3:10 to Yuma (rated R, avg review rating 4/5 stars, $1.99 for the Instant Video rental, $9.99 to purchase the Instant Video) is another excellent, more recent Western. From Amazon:
An update of the 1957 Western, 3:10 TO YUMA pairs two of today’s finest actors, Academy Award winner Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, as an infamous outlaw and the struggling rancher who volunteers to deliver him to justice.
Amazon Top 500 Reviewer and Vine Voice Mel Odom says:
The movie had been made fifty years ago, and much of the plot in that version made it into the remake. Both movies were based on a short story by Elmore Leonard, who has had several of his Western and crime novels made into films.
Christian Bale stars as Dan Evans, a one-legged, down-on-his-luck rancher struggling to keep a home together for his wife and two kids. Russell Crowe plays Ben Wade, an intelligent and heartless outlaw who’s leading one of the blood-thirstiest gangs to ever take up the owlhoot trail. Both stars take turns stealing scenes. Bale has the hard-edged look of coarse rawhide. Crowe possesses some of the deadest eyes ever shown in movies.
The story is simple. Dan is struggling to make ends meet and bumps into Wade during an armored wagon job. Later, after taking Byron McElroy into town for medical attention, Dan confronts Hollander, the man who’s trying to run him off his land. When Hollander won’t give him an extension on his loan, Dan finds Wade and helps take him captive. Then he agrees to help transport him to Yuma for $200. The movie quickly spins out into the action of the violent road trip. In addition to being one of the fastest gunmen around, Wade is also a skilled psychological warrior, constantly taunting his captors and seeking out their weaknesses.
…a final showdown in Yuma that is one of the most exciting I’ve ever seen in a Western…Westerns succeed best by having good men with a history of bad violence and bad men who haven’t completely gone over to the dark side. 3:10 TO YUMA is one of those.
One caveat I will offer to people who have seen the original movie starring Glenn Ford and Van Heflin, this version does NOT follow the same paths or end up the same way. Expect to be surprised and shocked at how things turn out. And you’ll be tense nearly the whole way through.
No Country For Old Men (rated R, avg review rating 3.5/5 stars, $1.99 for the Instant Video rental, $9.99 to purchase the Instant Video) is an unusual entry to the field, in that it’s set in current times. The bad guys here are drug dealers and hired assassins, not desperadoes or cattle rustlers. Nevertheless, this film covers much of the same thematic ground as the classic Westerns of old: honor, courage, love of one’s home and family.
While the film has generated mixed reviews on Amazon, it’s the winner of four Academy Awards and has a 95% Fresh rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. On the same site, non-critic audience members have given the film an 84% Fresh rating. The extreme violence of the film seems to be a point of contention for some viewers, as well as the fact that there’s no tidy ending.
From Amazon:
Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon some dead bodies, a stash of heroin and more than $2 million in cash near the Rio Grande.
Finally, the very gritty and award-winning HBO series 
Deadwood (avg review rating 4/5 stars, $1.99 to rent each episode as an Instant Video, $19.99 to purchase the Instant Video of each season) is a terrific show not only for fans of Westerns, but for anyone who enjoys realistic period drama, sharp writing and strong acting performances. Be warned: it’s filled with strong language, graphic violence and adult content, so those with more conservative sensibilities may be offended. From IMDB:
A show set in the late 1800’s, revolving around the characters of Deadwood, South Dakota; a town of deep corruption and crime.
IMDB users give the series an average rating of 9/10 across more than 25,000 reviews.