The genre dates back to the silent age of cinema and has remained a steady staple in the movie industry. The popularity of the Western ebbs and flows, but sooner or later, audiences always come back to outlaws, horse chases, and life on the plains. Occasionally, new stories are produced, but more often than not, contemporary Westerns are based on established classics.

Some of these films are the first time a classic has been remade. Others are the second, third, or fourth remake, with the original having come out in the 1920s or 1930s. Plenty of these remakes are based on novels or short stories too.

Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars is one of the first "spaghetti Westerns" made in Italy. It also features Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby) in his first leading role. The movie initially garnered negative reviews from critics, but became a favorite among Italian and American audiences. Leone and Eastwood went on to make two more films in "Dollars Trilogy," For a Few Dollars More in 1965 and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in 1966.

Like The Magnificent Seven, A Fist Full of Dollars is based on an Akira Kurosawa film. This time, it's Yojimbo from 1961. While Kurosawa approved of The Magnificent Seven, there was a legal dispute regarding Leone's use of Kurosawa's original material in A Fistful of Dollars since Kurosawa was not credited or paid by the studio. The suit was eventually settled out of court.

Set against the backdrop of a girls' school in Virginia during the American Civil War, The Beguiled is a gothic thriller wrapped in a Western. Written and directed by Sofia Coppola (Priscilla), the film stars Nicole Kidman (Babygirl) as the head of the school, Miss Martha Farnsworth, and Colin Farrell as wounded Union army deserter Corporal John McBurney. The cast includes Kirsten Dunst (Civil War) and Elle Fanning (A Complete Unknown).

Southern Gothics that function as a Western and a thriller used to be pretty unique, but The Beguiled wasn't the first of its kind. It's based on the 1971 film directed by Don Siegel (Escape from Alcatraz). It starred Clint Eastwood as Corporal John McBurney, and audiences weren't quite sure what to make of it. The movie was perhaps ahead of its time, at least within the Western genre. The story comes from Thomas P. Cullinan's 1966 novel of the same name.

Just three years after he directed Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, John Sturges made The Magnificent Seven for United Artists. It starred a number of classic stars as the seven gunfighters hired to liberate a village taken over by bandits. The cast included Yul Brynner (The Ten Commandments), Eli Wallach (The Misfits), Steve McQueen (The Great Escape), and Charles Bronson (The Dirty Dozen).

Antoine Fuqua directed a remake of The Magnificent Seven in 2016 with an all-star cast led by Denzel Washington (Training Day), but audiences might not realize that Sturges's 1960 movie is also a remake. The Magnificent Seven is based on legendary director Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. Kurosawa's film was released by the Japanese production company Toho in 1954. It stars Toshirō Mifune (Rashomon), Takashi Shimura (Godzilla), and Keiko Tsushima (The Bells of Nagasaki). Seven Samurai is considered one of the most influential movies ever made, with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

The CBS made-for-TV movie Stagecoach isn't a musical, but some famous musicians star in it. Country singers Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, and Waylon Jennings lead the cast, with June Carter Cash in a supporting role. It is the most recent screen version of Stagecoach to be produced for audiences.

The 1986 film, along with a 1966 film starring Ann-Margret (Bye Bye Birdie), is based on the 1939 classic, Stagecoach. Directed by John Ford (The Searchers), the original movie starred John Wayne (Rio Bravo) and has stood as a huge influence on the genre over the last 86 years. Ford's film was based on Ernest Haycox's 1937 short story, "The Stage to Lordsburg."

There was a bit of a Western revival in the early 2000s, including John Lee Hancock's The Alamo. Produced by Ron Howard, the film depicted the 1836 Battle of the Alamo, when 150 men at the Alamo Mission made their last stand during the Texas Revolution. The film stars Dennis Quaid (The Parent Trap) as Sam Houston, Billy Bob Thornton (Tombstone) as Davy Crockett, Jason Patric (Sleepers) as Jim Bowie, and Patrick Wilson (The Conjuring) as Bill Travis.

In 1960, John Wayne produced, directed, and starred in his own version of The Alamo. Wayne played Davy Crockett with Richard Boone (Have Gun – Will Travel) as Sam Houston, Richard Widmark (Kiss of Death) as Jim Bowie, and Laurence Harvey (The Manchurian Candidate) as William B. Travis. The film is said to be a vehicle for Wayne's political views against communism and received mixed reviews.

The Virginian was a popular NBC television series that ran for nine seasons between 1962 and 1971. It starred James Drury (Pollyanna) in the title role as the foreman of Shiloh Ranch. Drury took the role to heart, promoting the series at conventions and festivals for years. The show is considered one of television's longest-running Westerns of all time.

The Virginian is loosely based on Owen Wister's 1902 novel of the same name. The book inspired five films before it became a television series, starting with a silent 1914 film directed by Cecil B. DeMille (The Ten Commandments). In 1929, Victor Fleming (Gone With the Wind) made an adaptation that put Gary Cooper (High Noon) in his first sound picture role. While Flemming's film was a success and is often credited with making Cooper a star, it is the television series with which contemporary audiences are most familiar.

3:10 to Yuma is one of the most well-regarded Westerns of the 21st century, with an 89% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Directed by James Mangold (Walk the Line), it features powerhouse performances by Russell Crowe (Gladiator), Christian Bale (The Dark Knight), and Ben Foster (Hell or High Water), with Gretchen Mol (Boardwalk Empire), Alan Tudyk (A Knight's Tale), and Logan Lerman (Hunters) supporting roles. There's also an appearance by Peter Fonda, acclaimed actor and son of My Darling Clementine star, Henry Fonda. The premise for 3:10 to Yuma is simple. A cattle rancher (Bale) must get a notorious outlaw (Crowe) to a train before the outlaw's posse can rescue him.

The 2007 film was preceded by Delmer Daves's 1957 classic of the same name. It starred Glenn Ford (Superman) and Van Heflin (Shane) as the rancher and the outlaw. The movie was based on the 1953 short story "Three-Ten to Yuma" by acclaimed Western and crime fiction writer Elmore Leonard. Both the 2007 and the 1957 adaptations were well-received, and viewers can't go wrong watching either of them.

Written and directed by No Country For Old Men filmmaker brothers Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, True Grit stars Hailee Steinfeld (Sinners) in a critically acclaimed debut role that earned her an Oscar nomination. Steinfeld plays Mattie Ross, a 14-year-old who hires Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to seek vengeance for her murdered father. The cast includes Matt Damon (Oppenheimer), Josh Brolin (No Country for Old Men), and Barry Pepper (Flags of Our Fathers).

True Grit is based on the 1969 Western directed by Henry Hathaway (The Sons of Katie Elder) with a script by Marguerite Roberts (Diamond Head). Roberts adapted the material from the Charles Portis novel that had been published the year before. Portis remains well-known for writing Westerns with a very distinct voice, often blending comedic elements in his work. He published five novels throughout his career, but True Grit remains one of the most popular.

There are at least a dozen movies about Wyatt Earp and the shootout at the O.K. Corral. Contemporary audiences might name Tombstone (1993) as a favorite, but in the heyday of American Westerns, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was a star-studded classic produced by Paramount Pictures. It featured Burt Lancaster (From Here to Eternity) as Wyatt Earp and Kirk Douglas (Spartacus) as Doc Holliday, with a young Dennis Hopper (Apocalypse Now) in what was only his third onscreen performance.

By the 1950s, remakes of films made in previous decades were quite common. Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is actually based on two films. The first was Frontier Marshal in 1939, which starred Randolph Scott (Ride the High Country) and Cesar Romero (Ocean's 11) as Earp and Holliday. In 1946, director John Ford remade Frontier Marshal under the title My Darling Clementine. This iteration starred Henry Fonda (12 Angry Men) as Wyatt Earp and Victor Mature (Kiss of Death) as Doc Holliday. Eleven years later, John Sturges (The Great Escape) made Gunfight at the O.K. Corral with roots in both the 1939 and 1946 films.

The Wind is a supernatural Western horror film written by Teresa Sutherland (Lovely, Dark, and Deep) and directed by Emma Tammi (Five Nights at Freddy's) with distribution by IFC Midnight. It stars Caitlin Gerard (Magic Mike) as Lizzy Macklin, a frontier woman isolated from friends and family after the death of a neighbor. The solitude becomes a burden on Lizzy, who starts to experience poltergeist phenomena within her home. The movie holds an 82% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

The Wind is based on historical accounts of frontier life and can be traced to one of cinema's oldest Westerns. In 1928, Lillian Gish (Duel in the Sun) starred in a silent film of the same name as Letty, a woman driven to madness by isolation on a Texas ranch. The picture was directed by Victor Sjöström (The Phantom Carriage) with a scenario by iconic screenwriter and frequent Mary Pickford collaborator Frances Marion (The Big House). Like many Westerns of the time, The Wind is an adaptation. It's based on Dorothy Scarborough's 1925 novel. Gish proved to be a driving force in getting the film made.