10 Best Movies Where 2 Legendary Western Actors Teamed Up

•  Legendary Western stars team up to form alliances and take on adversities, teaching the power of solidarity, comradery, and teamwork.
•  John Wayne, Paul Newman, and Clint Eastwood are among the Western stars who have made incredible team-up movies.
•  Films like The Magnificent Seven, Rio Bravo, and Ride the High Country highlight the importance of partnership and trust in the Western genre.

Over the years, the Western genre has had plenty of movies where legendary Western actors team up and overcome adversity. There are plenty of stories about bandits, cowboys, and outlaws being brought together through the most unlikely of circumstances and who are then forced to form an allegiance with one another and take on a multitude of desperados, gunslingers, and renegades. Along the way, the most unlikely of partners can discover that two are often better than one, and sometimes with the help of a larger theme, learn a lot about the power of solidarity, the value of comradery, and the benefits of teamwork.

There are some Western stars who have made a name for themselves in genre with a number of incredible team-up movies, such as John Wayne who has been paired with everyone from Dean Martin to Robert Mitchum. There are Hollywood stars, like Paul Newman and Robert Redford, who although they are just as acclaimed outside of the Western genre have also left their mark on this style of filmmaking. Of course, there are greats, such as Clint Eastwood, who despite being seen as the lone man hero of the Western has also realized the need for a classic team up from time to time.

10. The Magnificent Seven (1960)

Yul Brynner & Steve McQueen

A legendary remake of Akira Kurasawa’s Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven was an ensemble film propped up by its incredible cast, particularly Yul Brynner as Chris Adams, the leader of the seven, and Steve McQueen, as Vin Tanner, a drifted gone broke from gambling. The Magnificent Seven featured a gang of gunslingers hired to protect a village from Mexican bandits and was one of the greatest Western movies ever made. Having become embroiled in popular culture, the gathering a team narrative trope of the film can be seen in many films, such as Star Wars and The Avengers.

9. Rio Bravo (1959)

John Wayne & Dean Martin

The first Western team up movie starring John Wayne and Dean Martin, Rio Bravo was directed by Howard Hawkes and saw a play town sheriff, played by Wayne, enlist the help of the town drunk, played by Martin, to keep an inmate imprisoned. An often overlooked Western, the pairing of Wayne and Martin worked well as there was one man who enjoyed the order of the law while the other embraced chaos. Director Quetin Tarantino called Rio Bravo his favourite “hangover movie” (via New Yorker) and stated that if his didn’t did not like it, he knew there would be no relationship.

8. Ride The High Country (1962)

Randolph Scott & Joel McCrea

Bringing together Western hero Randolph Scott and Hollywood legend John McCrea, Ride the High Country was a twisted tale of double-crossing that highlighted Western themes of honor and compromised ideals. Telling the story of a union solider hired to transport gold from a mining community through dangerous territory, Ride the High Country acted as a late career triumph for 64-year-old Scott and 57-year-old McCrea. As both a farewell to the passing of the Old West and a celebration of the search for friendship and trust, Ride the High Country was an early work by director Sam Peckinpah, who later made The Wild Bunch.

7. The Sons Of Katie Elder (1965)

John Wayne & Dean Martin

The Sons of Katie Elder featured John Wayne and Dean Martin and was the duos second Western team-up after Rio Bravo six years earlier. The Sons of Katie Elder told the story of four brothers and their quest to avenge the murder of their father and remedy the swindling of their beloved mother. Wayne and Martin proved once again in this film that their dynamic was an exciting one, as Wayne played the oldest and more responsible authority figure, while Martin acted as a charming, reckless, wildcard, struggling with alcohol issues.

6. El Dorado (1966)

John Wayne & Robert Mitchum

El Dorado had John Wayne team up with the incredible Hollywood anti-hero Robert Mitchum in a Howard Hawkes directed tale of gunfighters embroiled in an altercation over the most previous of commodities: Water. A tough and amusing Western, El Dorado succeeded in no small part due to incredible skill of its two lead actors who portray gun-for-hire Cole Thorton and Sherriff J.P. Harrah respectively. An epic Western categorized by strong direction from Hawkes and powerful onscreen chemistry from Wayne and Mitchum, El Dorado was a great team-up Western that has often been overlooked in discussions around this genre.

5. The Wild Bunch (1969)

William Holden & Ernest Borgnine

Sam Peckinpah’s epic revisionist Western The Wild Bunch was about aging outlaws trying to adapt to a world that was passing them by. With an ensemble cast led by 1950s icon William Holden and gruff character actor Ernest Borgnine, The Wild Bunch acted as an important film in the development of American cinema and expertly used slow-motion to depict bullets ripping through the bodies of outlaws. The filmmaking techniques used in The Wild Bunch were so cutting edge at the time, that can be easy to forget how revolutionary they were when the film was released in 1969.

4. The Professionals (1966)

Burt Lancaster & Lee Marvin

The Professionals was set during the final years of the Mexican Revolution and featured Burt Lancaster and Lee Marvin as a part of a team hired by an American rancher to rescue his kidnapped wife. Lancaster was Bill Dolworth and Marvin was Rico Fardan, expert bounty hunters, search for the kidnapper Jesus Raze, a former revolutionary turned bandit. Lancaster and Marvin excelled as part of a team that also included Robert Ryan and Woody Strode, in a fun all-star film that was action-packed, well-paced, and just an all-round enjoyable Western adventure.

3. Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969)

Paul Newman & Robert Redford

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid featured Hollywood stars Paul Newman and Robert Redford as real-life bandits whose onscreen chemistry cemented the films as a classic on the Western genre. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was a defining moment in the New Hollywood movement, which saw the dissolution of the old Hollywood studio system and a new period where auteur-driven filmmaking was taking over. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had a unique style that still holds up today and breathed new life into the Western team up genre and had an influence that extended into not just Westerns but all subsequent films for its contemporary feel, and humorous, action-packed narrative.

2. For A Few Dollars More (1965)

Clint Eastwood & Lee Van Cleef

Having already made Western history with his iconic portrayal of the Man with No Name in Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars, Clint Eastwood teamed up Italian Spaghetti Western star Lee Van Cleef in its sequel For a Few Dollars More. With Cleef as Colonel Douglas Mortimer and Eastwood as the no named man many called Manco, the bounty hunter duo teamed up to track down the Mexican bandit El Indio. For a Few Dollars More acted as the tensest of Leone’s Westerns, which also included The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and as the second movie in the Dollars Trilogy sadly often gets overlooked.

1. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (1962)

John Wayne & James Stewart

Starring iconic legends of Hollywood John Wayne and James Stewart, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence completed their trio with the Western genres greatest filmmaker John Ford taking on direction duties. As an expertly crafted deconstruction of the myth of the Old West, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance commented on the genre and acted as a statement about the glorification of bandits, cowboys, and the nature of outlaws. When The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance was released in the late 1960s, the classic Western genre was fading in popularity, and this film acted as a stepping stone toward the more self-aware style of filmmaking seen in the New Hollywood era.