Westerns understand the power of a well-timed gunfight better than any other genre. After hours of simmering tensions in rugged landscapes, frontier towns, and saloons, a final exchange of gunfire can determine everything. Every Western fan knows the rules: the characters stand at the opposite end of the street to their enemy, walk slowly toward each other, and then draw their gun and shoot.
This has fallen out of fashion recently with the rise of the revisionist Western, where the movie's hero takes out more and more enemies, at the expense of the intensity of a one-on-one duel. Some classic Western showdowns, including from brilliant films like Unforgiven, True Grit, High Noon, and Rio Bravo, have epic gun battles, but it's not quite the same as an iconic showdown. Between desperate struggles for survival and long-awaited confrontations between sworn enemies, these are the best final gunfights in Westerns.
Tombstone hasn't aged particularly well; its dialogue can be cheesy, the performances occasionally veer into melodrama, and the story is sprawling and unfocused. What hasn't dated at all, however, is Val Kilmer's iconic performance as Doc Holliday. He effectively walks away with the film, with his heated rivalry with Johnny Ringo (Michael Biehn) proving much more compelling than Wyatt Earp's (Kurt Russell) crusade against the Cowboys. It all comes to a head when Ringo challenges Earp to a duel, only for Holliday to arrive in his friend's place, announcing his presence with the colorful, iconic phrase:
As brilliant as Kilmer is, Biehn is no slouch. Ringo is an intelligent, deadly gunslinger whose intelligence and menace make him a worthy opponent for Holliday. Their fateful confrontation feels inevitable because both men recognize something of themselves in the other. It might be a brief duel, but the psychological build-up is intense, as the two men closely circle each other in a peaceful woodland glade, which is a dramatic contrast to the violence that's about to ensue. Tombstone doesn't reinvent the Western showdown, but with its intense staredowns, iconic lines, and gritty execution, it's the perfect climax to the hostility that has been building between the two men throughout.
If you're a fan of quick draws, Sam Raimi's gloriously theatrical The Quick & The Dead is the perfect Western film. The Quick & The Dead takes the classic Western duel, traditionally reserved for the climax, and makes it the premise of the entire film. Raimi plays with all the clichés and conventions of the genre, but while the archetypes are broad and the performances heightened, he never plays them for laughs.
Sharon Stone plays Ellen, a mysterious gunslinger who arrives in the town of Redemption to enter a deadly quick-draw tournament organized by the self-appointed ruler of the town, Herod (Gene Hackman). Each round pits two gunfighters against one another; if you're not the quickest, you're dead. It's a simple setup, but Raimi finds inventive ways to film every showdown, giving each one its own visual flair and turning a series of potentially repetitive shootouts into distinct set-pieces.
The Quick & The Dead's explosive finale actually takes place with a fight between Heron and Ellen, but the final traditional Western showdown, though, comes just before when Herod and his illegitimate son, The Kid (Leonardo DiCaprio), duel. The Kid spends most of the film trying to prove himself to a father who refuses to acknowledge him, and he sees the tournament as his opportunity to meet Herod on his own terms.
The Kid vs. Herod is the first The Quick & The Dead showdown that has real stakes, and despite knowing how it must end given the direction of the story, viewers will still find themselves rooting for The Kid. DiCaprio brings a heartbreaking vulnerability to the character, as all his bravado vanishes instantly. Hackman makes Herod utterly despicable, even as it's clear he doesn't want to go through with this round. Afterward, he refuses to comfort the dying Kid and can't resist one more dig, muttering: "It was never proved that he was my son." It's a high-energy, suffocating showdown that quickly becomes The Quick & The Dead's coldest moment.
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