Research into Most Popular Westerns

Having chosen to create a trailer, poster and website for a Western, we started by using the website IMDb to search for the most popular and highest rated Westerns. We would use these to choose which trailers and films to analyse, as well as gain a idea of what audiences appreciate in their Westerns.

From these lists, we could see that the most popular Westerns were mostly modern, such as "Jonah Hex", which is understandable, as there is a higher chance of forthcoming films to be searched for. On the other hand, the highest rated list clearly shows an audience preference for older, "classic" Westerns over more modern ones. The most striking thing though is that Sergio Leone's "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" is number one on both lists.
"The Good The Bad and The Ugly" is part of the so-called "Man With No Name Trilogy"; all of the films from this trilogy appear in the top 6 of the highest user-rated films, clearly showing great appreciation for Leone's work.

We decided that these films and their trailers would definitely be on our "to watch" list, alongside with the consistently highly-rated modern Western, "Unforgiven". It is interesting to note that the director Clint Eastwood dedicated the film to Leone, clearly showing great appreciation for the man's work, and cementing the film-maker's legendary status amongst the Western genre.