The 12 most awesome cowboys in TV & film history

Cowboys have been a staple in entertainment for just about as long as Hollywood has been making movies and TV shows. Loners of the plains, they often long for a simple existence but are called into battle by a dark past that can only be put to rest with a six-shooter. In honor of Rockstar’s new Red Dead Redemption video game, here are Guyism’s top 12 cowboys who went out with guns blazing.

12 Sheriff Bart – Blazing Saddles
Whoa, lil doggies, (chill, I’ll insert cheese if I want to) okay maybe Sheriff Bart might not come across as the typical tough as nails gunslinger. But still, the guy was in one of the greatest comedies ever — certainly the greatest western comedy. If you think Lightning Jack was better, then beg Mel Brooks’ ghost for mercy on your comedy deprived soul.

Note: Writer realizes Mel Brooks is alive.

11 Charlie Burns – The Proposition
The only western on the list not set in the American West, The Proposition found Guy Pearce as Charlie Burns hunting down his own brother in the 1800s Australian outback. Charlie is the leader of the Burns Gang and a nasty dude overall. His brother, Arthur is even nastier and crazier – think Joe Pesci’s character from Goodfellas with an Aussie accent and cowboy boots. The movie is dark, depressing and uber violent, which isn’t too surprising considering it was written by Nick Cave. Quigley Down Under it’s not.

10 Marshal Matt Dillon – Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke is the second longest running television series in prime time, tied with Law and Order and only second to The Simpsons (not to mention it had a previous run on radio). For twenty seasons Marshall Matt Dillon brought law and order to Dodge City. When outlaws came into town he was the first man they looked for and the last they wanted to meet. Not much was revealed about the Marshal; he wasn’t eager to pull his six shooter, but didn’t think twice to put a bad guy six feet under.

9 Seth Bullock – Deadwood
Something about the new frontier just spawns violence, corruption, and debauchery – and the gold rush town of #%$!ing Deadwood, South Dakota was no different. Before setting up shop as a hardware store owner in Deadwood, that $#!@, Bullock had already brought justice to the town of Helena, Montana as sheriff. Deadwood was a rowdy mining town of %$*^$#@!ers, *@!$%^#@ers and vermin. And the biggest piece of $#!& that Bullock had to deal with was that #@$!!er, Al Swearengen, a sleazy #%$!ing saloon/brothel owner. Timothy Olyphant filled the boots of Bullock on HBO’s Deadwood for three glorious seasons (and even brought the cowboy hat with him to Justified).

8 Will Kane – High Noon
High Noon has been named not only one of the best westerns, but one of the best films in history because of Gary Cooper’s portrayal of a New Mexico marshal. Will Kane comes back to face a pissed off ghost of his past when Frank Miller, a criminal out for revenge comes looking to kill him. Worst of all, he discovers this bad news on his wedding day. It’s like dying twice in one day – zing! (drum beat). The entire town deserts the guy, but he faces Miller and his gang alone. At what time class? High Noon, good job!

7 Harmonica – Once Upon a Time in the West
In Sergio Leone’s 1968 classic, Charles Bronson plays an unnamed man who goes by “harmonica” and pursues hired gun Frank for unknown reasons. The guy has a goal and anybody who gets in his way is soon to be pushing up daises. Like most Leone films the pacing is slow, opting for eerie music rather than dialogue to build up the tension between gunmen. Spoiler alert: before gunning down Frank in a final shootout a flashback revels that as child Frank made Harmonica support his older brother on his shoulders just before hanging him. No wonder the guy is bitter.

6 Josey Wales – The Outlaw Josey Wales
Clint makes the list with maybe his most famous role in the genre. He plays a peaceful Missouri farmer living a simple life in the final days of the Civil War. But then his family is murdered and his home burned to the ground. Damn, why does this kind of stuff keep happening to cowboys? Determined to avenge his family’s death he joins a band of guerrilla fighters to kill the men responsible for his anguish. Instead of talking about this pain and suffering or going to group therapy, Josey blows away the bad guys with a Gatling gun and kills a Calvary officer with his own sword. Just the poster alone says, “I’m not in a good mood and somebody’s gonna eat a bullet.”

5 Wyatt Earp – Tombstone
All is not well in the quiet Arizona town of Tombstone, a band of outlaws cleverly known as “the Cowboys” start causing trouble and retired lawman Wyatt Earp is called upon to bring the justice. All he wants is a normal life for his family, but like any good western, that’s not happening without some bloodshed first. A wife who’s an opium addict and a friend with tuberculosis, Wyatt and his brothers don’t have the best hand of cards to start off with. Based somewhat on actual historical events between 1881 and 1882, the gunfight at the O.K. Corral is probably one of the best gunfights in a western in the last twenty years.

4 Boss – Open Range
Something about marriage and being a cowboy just never seems to work. That’s the story with Robert Duval’s character Boss, a rugged old cattle boss who lost his wife to typhoid and is trying to hold on to the old ways of running cattle. The film focuses on Duval and Kevin Costner as Charley, two cowboys who believe in free access to water and grass for cattle, but most go to battle with a cruel land baron. After his friend is jailed and later killed, Boss and Charley take on the land baron and his henchman with guns blazing. One of the best scenes finds Boss in the bar looking for the land baron and Charley sliding a mug of beer down the bar, smacking the bartender in the face when he smarts off. Definitely an unorthodox approach to grabbing the bar tender’s attention.

3 Reuben “Rooster” J. Cogburn – True Grit
When thinking about the movie cowboy it’s almost impossible not to imagine John Wayne riding the prairie and talking in his trademark slow drawl. The Duke epitomizes the idea of a tough, honest, hard drinking gunslinger, but took on a bit of the anti-hero role in 1969’s True Grit. A confederate Civil War veteran with an eye-patch, Cogburn is the toughest U.S. Marshall working Indian Country. He’s reportedly killed 23 men in the line of duty and doesn’t give a damn about it. There’s something about taking up for the weak that just makes cowboys want to unload a revolver on bad guys. This is the case when Cogburn helps a 14-yr old girl track down the man who killed her father. The guy has his own method on how to be a role model.

2 Man with no name – A Fist Full of Dollars
It’s hard to argue that Clint Eastwood doesn’t have a talent for playing quiet, loner cowboys that walk the line between hero and villain. The stranger, Blondie, Joe, whatever you want to call him, he fought dirty with his own brand of justice. Not much is known about the anti-hero from Sergio Leone’s famous spaghetti-western Dollars Trilogy. He’s not about flash, opting for a weathered brown hat, dirty poncho and smoldering cigarillo that rarely leaves his mouth. The harshness of the tobacco in the cigarillos is what gave Clint the character’s trademark squint throughout the film. If the stranger’s got a gun, you don’t want to be the guy with the shovel. “You see, in this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend. Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig.”

1 William Munny – Unforgiven
When you first see William Munny he appears to be just a widowed farmer trying to get by and support his kids. Soon enough we learn he’s a retired outlaw killer who’s hung up his guns and put down the bottle, but the dark skeletons of his past come to light as the movie progresses. The upstanding father he is, he decides to take one more job with his buddies to makes some extra cash by executing two cowboys who’ve cut up a hooker. The workplace can change a lot when you’ve gone away for awhile, and things take a bad turn when Munny’s best friend, Logan, is beat to death by the town sheriff. Revenge is a classic theme in westerns and Munny’s character gets his by shooting up a saloon and then threatening to kill everybody in the town and burn it to the ground. (Cool fact: Clint Eastwood has directed more movies than Steven Spielberg.)

Like cowboys? Pick up a copy of Red Dead Redemption at Gamecenter, available on XBOX 360 and PS3, now!

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