Red River

The first cattle drive along the Chisholm Trail, from Texas to Kansas. The rancher Thomas Dunson starts it; when his harshness turns the drovers against him, his adopted son Matt Garth takes over and points the herd at Abilene rather than Missouri. Howard Hawks directed. John Wayne plays Dunson and Montgomery Clift plays Matt. It was shot in 1946 and released in black and white on 26 August 1948. Howard Hughes sued, claiming the climactic fight resembled his film The Outlaw. The result was an alternate 127-minute cut with narration replacing the visual transitions. The domestic gross was 4.5 million dollars. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 100 percent. It entered the National Film Registry in 1990 and the American Film Institute ranked it the fifth-greatest Western. It took two Oscar nominations, for editing and story. The most repeated line about it belongs to John Ford: I didn't know the big son of a bitch could act. Who it is for: viewers who like classic Westerns and stories built on a father-and-son conflict. Who it is not for: anyone who needs the ending to satisfy. The film ties off a two-hour reckoning in a few minutes, and that has been criticised for decades.