Directed by John Ford • 1956 • United States
Starring John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles

A towering work of Hollywood mythmaking, John Ford’s masterpiece represents both the apex of the classical Hollywood western and the blueprint for the troubling moral complexity of the genre revisionism that would follow it. In his defining role, John Wayne stars as Ethan Edwards, an embittered Civil War veteran who returns to Texas and discovers that Comanches have killed his family and kidnapped his nieces. Along with Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter), who was adopted by the Edwardses after his own parents were killed by Comanches, Ethan sets out to find his surviving niece (Natalie Wood) on a quest that will take him through the psychologically charged landscapes of Ford’s beloved Monument Valley and into the darkest recesses of the soul.