The history of cinema is inseparable from the history of the American West. From the moment The Great Train Robbery literally shot out at audiences in 1903, it was clear that films set in the West were going to be a major part of this new medium. Since The Lone Ranger has received universal bad reviews and has failed to connect with audiences, you can certainly wonder why the genre is still important. These movies are the reasons why audiences for generations loved this genre. They showed heroes with flaws, mixed in action, but never forgot what's important – great characters and stories.

Of course, the films on this list are only the tip of the iceberg. There's many other great films not on this list, like The Wild Bunch, 3:10 to Yuma, Winchester 73, True Grit (both versions) and My Darling Clementine.

The Big Trail - 1930, Raoul Walsh

Hollywood loved testing technology with Westerns. In 1930, Fox decided to test its Grandour process, an early 70 mm widescreen system on The Big Trail, directed by Raoul Walsh. This film first introduced moviegoers to a young man whose stage name was John Wayne. It was his first starring role and while most of the film may seem like a chore to sit through today, one can actually see the the roots of an American legend.

Stagecoach - 1939, John Ford

In the world of the Western, there is before Stagecoach and after Stagecoach. Every genre has a cornerstone project that defined what audiences would expect from then on and Stagecoach was that for the Western. Director John Ford hadn't made a Western since the dawn of sound and he chose this particular project to make his return. Ford and the screenwriters brought a unique group of travelers together and set them on the journey of their lives. What made this different from other Westerns at the time wasn't just its amazing cast (Thomas Mitchell, Claire Trevor, Donald Meek...oh, and John Wayne), but the multidimensional characters that made it easy for audiences to connect with the people on screen. There was also that Ford touch, which made his projects imbued sentimentality and he treated each subject as art (even if he never admitted it). If Stagecoach wasn't a hit, there's a good chance that the Western may not risen above Hollywood's B-movie studios.

Dodge City - 1939, Michael Curtiz

Stagecoach gets all the attention, but Michael Curtiz probably made the most fun Western put together in Hollywood with 1939's Dodge City. This movie has the greatest barroom brawl in movie history, with nearly 10 minutes of Yankees and Confederates bashing their brains in with chairs and tables. Errol Flynn will always look a little too dashing to be a traditional Western hero, but he works remarkably well here as the man who cleans up Dodge City.

Red River - 1948, Howard Hawks

Director Howard Hawks only made four Westerns during his lengthy career and while many love Rio Bravo with good reason, the best of them was his first – 1948's Red River. It features one of Wayne's best performances alongside the young Montgomery Clift in his first film. Hawks brought his themes of male bonding and the strong women with them to the West and suddenly he found the best environment for that.

High Noon - 1952, Fred Zinnemann

I wrote about High Noon in the past, but I'll say it again. It is one of the best Westerns ever and one of the best orchestrated films. Gary Cooper had been in a lot of Westerns by 1952, but none were as good as his role as the desperate Marshall Will Kane in High Noon. The role won him his second Oscar, which is pretty amazing for a guy who never went to acting school.

Vera Cruz - 1954, Robert Aldrich

When we think of violent Westerns, we think of the films of Sam Peckinpah or Sergio Leone, but none of those movies would have been possible without Robert Aldrich's Vera Cruz. The violence Aldrich (The Dirty Dozen, Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?) got away with in this film is incredible and made even better with a fiery Burt Lancaster and Cooper butting heads throughout. It is the tale of the run-down Western hero heading down to Mexico for a last chance at loot, a plot that many a Western revisionist tale would borrow.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance - 1962, John Ford

“This is the West sir. When legend becomes fact, print the legend,” a newspaperman tells James Stewart at the end of John Ford's final masterpiece, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. For decades, John Wayne's adventures in the West had promoted a time of heroic deeds and good versus evil. But in his last film with Ford, this was not the case. While Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin) was the evil man here, Wayne's character had his demons too and his actions would have consequences.

Liberty Valance really ushered in this new era of the Western, which became a genre obsessed with the death of a way of life. As the genre's popularity in the movies waned, Westerns were about the last days of the cowboys, the death of legends and old men trying to make one last score.

Once Upon A Time In The West - 1968, Sergio Leone

Sergio Leone introduced the world to Spaghetti Westerns with his “Man With No Name” Trilogy. To follow that up, he made Once Upon A Time In The West, a star-studded affair (Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Jason Robards and Claudia Cardinale make up the four leads). The film could have been the final statement for the West, since again, it dealt with how the environment was outgrowing the need for gunslingers. But it's about much more than that because Leone is hopeful for the West – he sees its future so this movie isn't all that depressing.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - 1969, George Roy Hill

1969 was a big year for Westerns, since both Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch and George Roy Hill's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid hit theaters that year. But Hill's movie reminds us that fun can be had in the West. Paul Newman and Robert Redford were brilliant together, blending humor with drama as few actors could. At its heart, Butch Cassidy is another 'one last robbery' film, but Newman, Redford, Hill and William Goldman's Oscar-winning script take a new spin on it.

Unforgiven - 1992, Clint Eastwood

With Unforgiven, Clint Eastwood – the iconic Western hero for the generation after Wayne – closed the book on the genre in his own way. In the film, he plays a run-down, retired gunslinger who has children, but when a young man's proposal for loot gets his attention, he decides to go after it anyway. It proves harder than he could imagine because of a brutal, sadistic sheriff, played by Gene Hackman, who won the film's only acting Oscar. Eastwood created a shockingly violent version of the West, very different from Peckinpah, who used slow motion to draw out his violence. Instead, Eastwood's violence is instant and no less powerful. Unforgiven remains one of the best films to take home the Best Picture Oscar.