Westerns have always been a male-dominated genre. From the old days of John Wayne and Gary Cooper to more modern movies with Clint Eastwood and Kevin Costner, it is the tough guys who stand tall. However, there have always been exceptions, and in the modern Western landscape, there are more and more women taking center stage as the Western heroes the world needs.

This is a change from the era of the solo riders, the Man With No Name (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) and Ethan Edwards (The Searchers) of the movie world. The entire Western movie landscape is undergoing a renaissance, thanks to movies like Viggo Mortensen’s The Dead Don’t Hurt (2024) and Taylor Sheridan’s ongoing television empire, proving there’s a big audience. This helped change what Westerns look like and brought women to the forefront.

There were some classical Hollywood movies with women in the lead roles, such as Johnny Guitar in 1954, and the more recent revisionist Westerns like The Beguiled and contemporary star vehicles like Jane Got a Gun. While throughout history, female-led Westerns have received less awards attention and critical reappraisal, the more that movies put them in the lead, the sooner that will change for the better.

Bad Girls (1994)

Bad Girls is a rare Western from the 1990s that features a predominantly female lead cast, with Madeleine Stowe, Andie MacDowell, Drew Barrymore, and Mary Stuart Masterson starring as four prostitutes who flee their town after a shooting and become outlaws. This was a box office bust in an era that saw male-led Westerns like Unforgiven and Tombstone better accepted. However, it became a cult favorite on home video thanks to the impressive cast.

This was a Western that showed a great love for the genre, and by making the entire story about strong women in the Old West, it was a disruptor at the time, and it has more significance than early reviews indicated. It didn’t make the sweeping changes of revisionist Westerns like Unforgiven, but by making this about women, it flipped the script and forced Hollywood to look at women’s roles in the genre.

Brimstone (2016)

Released in 2016, Dutch director Martin Koolhoven’s unflinching revenge Western Brimstone stars Dakota Fanning as Liz, a mute frontier woman pursued across decades by a sadistic Dutch preacher (Guy Pearce). The movie received mixed reviews, with a 45% Rotten Tomatoes score, but it was an official entry at the Venice Film Festival competition. While it received mixed reviews, part of that comes from the film’s brutal vision, especially when Liz’s tongue is cut out.

Fanning turns in a fantastic role, especially considering the fact that she spends the film communicating without dialogue. The film shares much in common thematically with The Power of the Dog and No Country for Old Men, but with more of a focus on female trauma and the sense of survival. Brimstone told the story of patriarchal violence against women, and that is a theme classical Westerners never would have approached.

Hannie Caulder (1971)

Released in 1971, Burt Kennedy’s revenge Western Hannie Caulder stars Raquel Welch as Hannie, a widowed rancher who tracks down the three outlaws (Ernest Borgnine, Jack Elam, Strother Martin) who murdered her husband and sexually assaulted her. The movie received mixed reviews when released, but later reappraisals credit the movie for its protofeminist premise years before this template existed in Hollywood.

The movie also has a strong influence on future Westerns and revenge thrillers, with the book, Quentin Tarantino: Interviews, Revised and Updated, revealing that Hannie Caulder was a direct inspiration for his Kill Bill movies. This was a rare older Western that established a female gunslinger as equal to, if not better than, her male counterparts.

Meek’s Cutoff (2010)

Meek’s Cutoff is a minimalist Western by Kelly Reichardt starring Michelle Williams as Emily Tetherow​​​​​​, a woman leading a group of 1845 Oregon Trail pioneers misguided by a bragging frontiersman (Bruce Greenwood’s Stephen Meek). The movie inverts the John Ford template, and instead of praising manifest destiny, it focuses on the confusion and helplessness of people led by men who don’t know what they are doing.

The movie received high critical praise, with an 86% Rotten Tomatoes score, and it has been listed on several rankings of the best Westerns of the 21st century. One thing that critics have pointed out is that this is not like a typical Western, with the sweeping landscapes. Instead, Reichardt keeps the camera pulled in to show the pioneer woman’s restricted field of vision.

Johnny Guitar (1954)

Released in 1954, Johnny Guitar is a Western by Nicholas Ray starring Joan Crawford as Vienna, a saloon owner in Arizona caught between a gunslinger she used to love (Sterling Hayden) and a jealous rival (Mercedes McCambridge). Slant Magazine reports that François Truffaut wrote that Johnny Guitar “is the Beauty and the Beast of westerns, a western dream​​​​​​​.“

Over 70 years since the movie’s release, the gender politics in this classic Western remain a powerful look at the male-led Westerns of the era. The film replaces the gunfights people expected from John Wayne with a gunfight between two women, and it was as effective as any male-dominated Western of its time. Everyone from Pedro Almodóvar to Todd Haynes has cited the movie as an influence.

The Missing (2003)

Released in 2003, The Missing is a Ron Howard Western with an incredible cast, as Cate Blanchett stars as Maggie Gilkeson, a New Mexico frontierswoman in 1885 whose daughter is abducted by an Apache renegade​​​​. Maggie then has to team with her estranged father (Tommy Lee Jones) to save her daughter. While a box office disappointment, critics praised the movie, and Blanchett received a Saturn Award nomination.

This was a rare Western for its time because it made Blanchett’s character a self-sufficient ranch owner from the start, making her a very capable protagonist alongside Jones. At the time the movie was released, films like Open Range and 3:10 to Yuma emphasized men’s role in the genre, and this movie helped rebalance the gender focus, while remaining quality entertainment.

Jane Got a Gun (2015)

Jane Got a Gun was a Gavin O’Connor revenge Western released in 2015. Natalie Portman stars as Jane Hammond, a New Mexico homesteader who calls in her ex-fiancé (Joel Edgerton) to help defend her home from the outlaw gang terrorizing her husband. The movie remains known as one of Portman’s most physical and controlled roles, as it is her character who takes control of the situation.

While Jane calls in her ex-fiancé for help, this is a female-led Western that sets the template for the idea of a woman defending the home trope, and in a genre known for men taking control, the gender-flip here changes the themes of Westerns in interesting ways. This was the movie that laid the groundwork for later female-led Westerns like Brimstone and The Homesman.

True Grit (2010)

True Grit is a remake of the only movie for which John Wayne won an acting Oscar. While that earlier movie was a showcase for Wayne and one of his biggest moments, the Coen Brothers remake from 2010 gave just as much attention to the actress playing 14-year-old Mattie Ross, who in this case was future Marvel actress Hailee Steinfeld (Hawkeye).

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The story is the same, with Mattie hiring Rooster Cogburn (here played by Jeff Bridges) to find the man who killed her father. The movie goes a long way into showing Mattie is as important as Rooster here, and the movie earned 10 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and a Best Supporting Actress nomination for Steinfeld herself.

The Beguiled (2017)

Sofia Coppola directed her own revisionist Western in 2017 with The Beguiled. Based on the 1966 Thomas P. Cullinan novel, the movie stars Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, and Elle Fanning as the inhabitants of a Virginia girls’ school during the Civil War. Their lives change drastically when they take in a wounded Union soldier (Colin Farrell) and have to decide if they will turn him over to the Confederate authorities or keep him hidden.

Coppola won Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival for The Beguiled, only the second woman in history to win the award. This movie was made before with Clint Eastwood in the film, and Coppola’s movie went much further in showing the women’s point of view rather than that of the male soldier. The Beguiled is one of the best female-led Civil War Westerns ever made.

The Homesman (2014)

Tommy Lee Jones directed the 2014 Western The Homesman, a frontier story that stars Hilary Swank as Mary Bee Cuddy, a 1850s homesteader charged with transporting three ill women back East. Along the way, she meets up with Jones’s drifter, and he comes along to help out any way he can. Mary Bee has a rare controlled fury not often seen in women in Westerns, operating with an agency that few women of the era were afforded.

The Homesman has an 80% Rotten Tomatoes score and was an official selection at the Cannes Film Festival. The movie is a repudiation of the frontier myth, and it shows the damage the frontier inflicts on women, a standout in the genre for that reason. When it comes to female-led Westerns, this is one of the most powerful as it shows the effects of the patriarchal system on women’s mental health at the time.