Classical Westerns
Edwin S. Porter's 1903 film starring Broncho Billy Anderson The Great Train Robbery is often cited as the first Western, though George N. Fenin and William K. Everson point out that the "Edison company had played with Western material for several years prior to The Great Train Robbery." Nonetheless, they concur that Porter's film "set the patternof crime, pursuit, and retributionfor the Western film as a genre."[9] The film's popularity opened the door for Anderson to become the screen's first cowboy star, making several hundred Western film shorts. So popular was the genre that he soon had competition in the form of Tom Mix and William S. Hart. The Golden Age of the Western is epitomized by the work of two directors: John Ford and Howard Hawks (both of whom often used John Wayne in lead roles).
Northerns
The Northern genre is a subgenre of Westerns taking place in Western Canada or Alaska. Examples include The Far Country with James Stewart and North to Alaska with John Wayne.
Florida Westerns
Florida Westerns or Cracker Westerns as the title suggests are set in Florida.
Euro Westerns
Euro Westerns are Western films made in Western Europe. The term can sometimes, but not necessarily, include the Spaghetti Western subgenre (see below). One example of a Euro Western is the 1961 Anglo-Spanish film The Savage Guns. Several such films nicknamed Sauerkraut Westerns[10] were made in Germany and shot in Yugoslavia, derived from stories by novelist Karl May (cf. article on film adaptations).
Spaghetti Westerns
During the 1960s and 1970s, a revival of the Western emerged in Italy with the "Spaghetti Westerns" or "Italo-Westerns". The most famous of them is The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Many of these films are low-budget affairs, shot in locations (for example, the Spanish desert region of Almería) chosen for their inexpensive crew and production costs as well as their similarity to landscapes of the Southwestern United States. Spaghetti Westerns were characterized by the presence of more action and violence than the Hollywood Westerns. Also, the protagonists usually acted out of more selfish motives (money or revenge being the most common) than in the classical westerns.
Meat pie Westerns
The meat pie Western is a slang term to used to describe an American Western-style movie or TV series set in Australia, and especially the Australian Outback. A play on the Italo-western moniker "spaghetti Westerns". Films such as Rangle River (1936), Kangaroo (1952), The Man from Snowy River (1982), Five Mile Creek (1983-85) - TV series, and Quigley Down Under (1991) are all representative of the genre. The term is used to differentiate more Americanized Australian films from those with a more historical basis, such as those about bushrangers.
Osterns
Eastern-European-produced Westerns were popular in Communist Eastern European countries, and were a particular favorite of Joseph Stalin.[citation needed] "Red Western" or "Ostern" films usually portrayed the American Indians sympathetically, as oppressed people fighting for their rights, in contrast to American Westerns of the time, which frequently portrayed the Indians as villains. They frequently featured Gypsies or Turkic people in the role of the Indians, due to the shortage of authentic Indians in Eastern Europe.
Revisionist Western
After the early 1960s, many American film-makers began to question and change many traditional elements of Westerns. One major change was in the increasingly positive representation of Native Americans who had been treated as "savages" in earlier films (Little Big Man, Dances with Wolves, Dead Man). Audiences were encouraged to question the simple hero-versus-villain dualism and the morality of using violence to test one's character or to prove oneself right.
Some recent Westerns give women more powerful roles. One of the earlier films that encompasses all these features was the 1956 adventure film The Last Wagon in which Richard Widmark played a white man raised by Comanches and persecuted by whites, with Felicia Farr and Susan Kohner playing young women forced into leadership roles. Westward the Women (1951) starring Robert Taylor is another example.
Acid Western
Film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum refers[specify] to a makeshift 1960s and 1970s genre called the acid Western, associated with Dennis Hopper, Jim McBride, and Rudy Wurlitzer, as well as films like Monte Hellman's The Shooting, Alejandro Jodorowsky's bizarre experimental film El Topo (The Mole), and Robert Downey Sr.'s Greaser's Palace. The 1970 film El Topo is an allegorical cult Western and underground film about the eponymous character, a violent black-clad gunfighter, and his quest for enlightenment. The film is filled with bizarre characters and occurrences, use of maimed and dwarf performers, and heavy doses of Christian symbolism and Eastern philosophy. Some spaghettis also crossed over into the acid genre, such as Enzo G. Castellari's mystical Keoma (released in 1976), a Western reworking of Ingmar Bergman's metaphysical The Seventh Seal.
Contemporary Westerns/Neo-Westerns
Although these films have contemporary American settings, they utilize Old West themes and motifs (a rebellious anti-hero, open plains and desert landscapes, and gunfights). For the most part, they still take place in the American West and reveal the progression of the Old West mentality into the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This sub-genre often features Old West-type characters struggling with displacement in a "civilized" world that rejects their outdated brand of justice.
Science fiction Western
This subgenre places science fiction elements within a traditional terran Western setting. Examples include Wild Wild West, Westworld, its sequel Futureworld, Cowboys & Aliens, "Back to the Future Part III", and the hybrid film Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter. Damnation is a video game example of the science fiction Western.
Space Western
A subgenre of science fiction Western, the space Western transposes traditional genre themes onto a space frontier backdrop, updating them with futuristic technologies. This can be as subtle as space rangers exploring wild, interstellar frontiers, or as direct as futuristic cowboys wielding ray guns and riding robotic horses. Examples include Bravestarr, Outland, the Borderlands series, and Firefly (as well as the film Serenity based on Firefly).
Fantasy Western
Westerns mixed in a more Fantasy settings and themes. These includes having Fantasy mythology as background. Most famous examples are The Dark Tower series, Preacher, and Kino's Journey.
Indo Western
Westerm films in India was first made in Telugu Mosagaalaku Mosagaadu in 1970. Following with films Mappusakshi (Malayalam), Ganga and Jakkamma (Tamil). But those films were more based on Classic Westerns. Spaghetti Westerns laid the groundwork for Sholay in 1975 after which it was called as curry western . Followed by Khote Sikkay and Thai Meethu Sathiyam were some notable films of this genre. Adima Changala (1971) starring Prem Nazir was a hugely popular zapata spaghetti western film in Malayalam.
Horror Western
A developing sub-genre, with roots in films such as Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (1966), which depicts the legendary outlaw Billy the Kid fighting against the notorious vampire. The Ghoul Goes West was an unproduced Ed Wood film to star Bela Lugosi as Dracula in the Old West.
Recent examples include the 1999 film Ravenous, which deals with cannibalism at a remote US army outpost, and the 2008 film The Burrowers, about a band of trackers who are stalked by the titular creatures. The Red Dead Redemption downloadable content "Undead Nightmare" is an example of a horror western video game.
Weird Western
This subgenre blends elements of a classic Western with other elements. The Wild Wild West and its later film adaptation blends the Western with steampunk and Jonah Hex blends the Western with superhero elements. This subgenre can encompass others, such as the Horror Western and the science fiction Western, e.g. Firefly (see above).
Western satire
This subgenre in its current usage is imitative in its style to mock, comment on, or trivialize the genre's established traits, subjects, auteurs' styles or some other target by means of humorous,satiric or ironic imitation. Such titles include Blazing Saddles, Carry On Cowboy, Three Amigos, The Hallelujah Trail, The Scalphunters, Rustlers' Rhapsody, Support Your Local Sheriff!, Support Your Local Gunfighter Maverick and A Million Ways to Die in the West.
