15 Wacky Westerns To Steer Clear Of

According to the American Film Institute, a Western film is one “set in the American West that [embodies] the spirit, the struggle, and the demise of the new frontier.”

From the silent era to the so-called Golden Age of the Western between 1940 and 1960 to today, these movies featuring gunslingers, cowboys, bounty hunters, and Native Americans became the cornerstone of American cinema.

Like any genre, not all Westerns come out with guns blazing. For every The Magnificent Seven or High Noon there is a Jonah Hex or Wild Wild West. Whether they tried to reinvent the wheel, combine genres, or retell old stories in a fresh way, the following wack Westerns missed the mark by a mile or 10.

The Lone Ranger (2013)

Gore Verbinski directed this Western action film starring Armie Hammer as John Reid, aka the Lone Ranger, and Johnny Depp as Tonto.

The Lone Ranger became one of the most notorious box office bombs of all time, reportedly losing Disney an estimated $160-190 million. The San Francisco Chronicle described the movie as “a jumbled botch that is so confused in its purpose and so charmless in its effect that it must be seen to be believed.”

With a bloated 149-minute run time, The Lone Ranger features one exciting train sequence padded with a lot of blather and backstory. One reviewer noted that Reid doesn’t even don the signature mask until the one-hour mark.

Jonah Hex (2010)

This Western superhero stinker stars Josh Brolin as the titular DC Comics character. Jonah Hex also stars John Malkovich, Megan Fox, Michael Fassbender, Will Arnett, and Michael Shannon.

Jonah Hex bombed at the box office, earning only $11 million worldwide against a production budget of $47 million. Keith Phipps of The A.V. Club wrote “the 81 minutes (including credits) of Jonah Hex footage that made it to the screen looks like something assembled under a tight deadline, and possibly under the influence.”

The Houston Film Critics Society named Jonah Hex the Worst Picture of the year at its 2010 ceremony. In an interview with GQ, Brolin said, “I won’t ever stop s—ing on Jonah Hex because it was a s—ty f—ing movie.” OK then!

Wild Wild West (1999)

The steampunk Western Wild Wild West is loosely based on the 1960s TV series The Wild Wild West. The Barry Sonnenfeld-directed movie stars Will Smith, Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, Salma Hayek, and Ted Levine. Smith’s hip-hop theme song, “Wild Wild West,” became a number-one hit while simultaneously winning a Razzie for Worst Original Song.

With a huge production budget — even by today’s standards — of $170 million, Wild Wild West proved unable to lasso enough cash at the box office to make it commercially successful. Critics called the movie “bombastic,” “a comedy dead zone,” and a “bizarre misfire.” Roger Ebert wrote that “the elaborate special effects are like watching money burn on the screen.”

Texas Rangers (2001)

Directed by Friday the 13th Part 2 director Steve Miner, Texas Rangers follows several Texas Rangers in the post-Civil War era. The action-western stars James Van Der Beek, Ashton Kutcher, Alfred Molina, and Dylan McDermott.

Texas Rangers bombed at the box office, failing to earn even $1 million against a budget of $38 million. Critics universally panned Texas Rangers, dismissing it as “mediocre.” Screenwriter John Milius reportedly said that Miramax “mutilated” his script.

“[Miramax doesn’t] have any sense of responsibility,” said Milius. “They’d make a film about anything if they thought it would make some money for them.”

Heaven’s Gate (1980)

Michael Cimino wrote and directed this troubled Western starring Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, John Hurt, Sam Waterston, Brad Dourif, Isabelle Huppert, Jeff Bridges, and Joseph Cotten. The epic tells the true story about a dispute between land barons and European immigrants in 1890s Wyoming.

Heaven’s Gate struggled with numerous retakes, a bloated budget, and allegations of animal abuse on set before critics even saw the movie and panned it. The movie premiered in November 1980, United Artists pulled it from theaters and recut it, and then rereleased the movie in April 1981, when it still bombed.

Roger Ebert called Heaven’s Gate the “most scandalous cinematic waste” he had ever seen. Joe Queenan, writing for The Guardian, described Heaven’s Gate as the worst film in history up to that point and one “that defies belief.”

The Ridiculous 6 (2015)

This action-comedy Western, directed by Frank Coraci, is about six men who try to reunite with their mutual bank-robbing father, played by Nick Nolte. The six men are played by Adam Sandler, Terry Crews, Jorge Garcia, Taylor Lautner, Rob Schneider, and Luke Wilson.

The Ridiculous 6 is one of the rare movies to have a 0% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics described the Netflix Western as “lazily offensive,” “must-avoid viewing,” “aimless,” and “par for the course” with regard to Sandler flicks.

A Million Ways To Die in the West (2014)

Writer-director-producer-actor Seth MacFarlane stars as gentle sheepherder Albert Stark in this Western comedy alongside Charlize Theron, Amanda Seyfried, Giovanni Ribisi, Neil Patrick Harris, Sarah Silverman, and Liam Neeson.

Despite an all-star cast of comedy sharpshooters, A Million Ways To Die in the West didn’t live long at the box office. Critics described the movie as “overlong,” “aimless,” “uninspired,” and “exhausting.” Although A Million Ways To Die in the West still mixes MacFarlane’s playfully offensive humor with his trademark boyish charm and sweet sentiment, reviewers commented that his performance came off as “surprisingly bland” and “not good enough as a romantic lead to anchor a picture.”

The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981)

This attempted reboot of the Lone Ranger franchise stars Klinton Spilsbury as John Reid, aka the Lone Ranger. The William A. Fraker-directed Western also stars Michael Horse, Christopher Lloyd, Matt Clark, Juanin Clay, and Jason Robards.

The Legend of the Lone Ranger came out in the early ’80s when interest in Westerns registered at an all-time low. The movie bombed, earning only $12 million against an $18 million budget. In addition to calling the film “badly acted and horribly paced,” reviewers criticized the decision to dub Spilsbury’s voice with that of James Keach. Spilsbury won a Razzie for Worst Actor and never appeared in another film again.

The White Buffalo (1977)

This fantasy Western, directed by J. Lee Thompson, stars Charles Bronson, Kim Novak, Jack Warden, Slim Pickens, and Will Sampson. Bronson plays Wild Bill Hickok — a man so haunted by dreams of the titular beast that he travels west to find and face it.

Although Thompson reportedly described his movie as the “Moby-Dick of the West,” critics who saw the movie after its release (there were no media screenings) felt otherwise. Variety called The White Buffalo a “turkey,” with dialogue that invites “jeers,” a “hokey soundtrack,” and “murky photography.” The Washington Post accurately predicted that the movie was “destined for almost instant obscurity.”

American Outlaws (2001)

This Les Mayfield-directed Western set late during the Civil War stars Colin Farrell, Scott Caan, and Ali Larter.

Dismissed as a Young Guns rip-off, American Outlaws bombed at the box office, earning less than $14 million against a $35 million budget. Roger Ebert wrote, “For years there have been reports of the death of the Western. Now comes American Outlaws, proof that even the B Western is dead.”

Robert Koehler of Variety echoed Ebert’s opinion and wrote that the film “sadly symbolizes the decline of the Western.” The Rotten Tomatoes critical consensus points out American Outlaws‘ “corny dialogue” and “revisionist history” before reducing it to “a teenybopper version of Jesse James.”

Jane Got a Gun (2015)

Oscar-winner Natalie Portman stars as gunslinging Jane Hammond in this Western directed by Gavin O’Connor.

With a budget of $25 million and a box office take of $3.8 million, Jane Got a Gun didn’t get its intended audience during its theatrical run and has the dubious distinction as the Weinstein Company movie with the worst wide-release opening.

Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly sums it up best when he wrote, “Since the film’s last-minute rewrites, casting switcheroos, and musical chairs behind the camera are irrelevant to the actual quality of the movie, I’ll avoid rehashing them here, save to say that the disarray shows on-screen.”

The Dark Tower (2017)

Based on Stephen King’s novel series of the same name, Nikolaj Arcel’s The Dark Tower stars Idris Elba as Roland Deschain — a gunslinger who must protect the titular legendary structure at the center of the universe. The neo-Western sci-fi fantasy also stars Matthew McConaughey as the ruthless sorcerer Walter Padick.

Fans waited for years for someone to adapt King’s The Dark Tower into a movie, but they could have waited longer given this disappointing effort that underwhelmed at the box office. Critics deemed it “boring and flavorless,” “incomprehensible to newbies,” and “wildly unfaithful and simplistic to fans of King’s books.” Rolling Stone called it a “major misfire” and an “unholy mess that shouldn’t happen to a King, much less a paying customer.”

Blueberry (2004)

French acid Western Blueberry adapts the comic book of the same name. The Jan Kounen-directed movie stars Vincent Cassel as Mike Blueberry alongside Juliette Lewis, Michael Madsen, Djimon Hounsou, and Eddie Izzard. The studio retitled the movie Renegade for its U.S. DVD debut in 2004.

The BBC described the box office disaster as “two parts bonkers to one part boring.” Although some critics praised the movie’s trippy visuals, Variety added that Blueberry “functions better as a purely visual journey than as the revelatory spiritual crucible it aspires to be.”

The Hallelujah Trail (1965)

John Sturges directed this Western mockumentary spoof starring Burt Lancaster, Lee Remick, Jim Hutton, and Pamela Tiffin. The 165-minute epic comedy is part of an elite group of movies filmed in Ultra Panavision 70.

The Hallelujah Trail cost $7 million and only made $4 million during its box office run. Most critics complained about the movie’s inexplicably long run time. Leonard Maltin described the movie as an “amiable but lumbering Western satire” that “goes on and on.” The Motion Picture Guide dismissed The Hallelujah Trail as a “one-joke plot with a few vignettes and gags strung on along the way.” Steven H. Scheuer’s Movies on TV concluded that “Lancaster looks understandably bored to death, and Lee Remick is miscast and wasted.”

Heaven With a Gun (1969)

Lee H. Katzin directed this Western starring Glenn Ford, Carolyn Jones, Barbara Hershey, John Anderson, and David Carradine. Ford plays gunslinger-turned-preacher Jim Killian, who arrives at the town of Vinegaroon and vows to protect the townspeople under the condition that he alone has the authority to shoot troublemakers.

Critic Dennis Schwartz described Heaven With a Gun as an “unpleasant Western” riddled with “numerous clichés.” He added, “It preaches an awkward social conscience message that peace can be found without guns. The trouble is the pic is clumsily executed and is leaden, so everything seems absurd and hardly believable.”