Rio Bravo (1959)
A list of movies about the American experience would be incomplete without at least one Western. While dark fables like “The Searchers” or “Unforgiven” (and, of course, HBO’s “Deadwood”) probably have more to say about America, for a good time in the Old West, you need look no further than Howard Hawks’s “Rio Bravo.” The unlikely quartet of John Wayne, Dean Martin, Walter Brennan and Ricky Nelson play lawmen determined to hold onto their prisoner while they wait for a federal judge to take him to trial. Martin gives a shockingly nuanced performance while Wayne gives an equally shockingly funny one. Angie Dickinson provides a firecracker of a love interest as a poker-loving con-artist on the run, and there’s even a wonderful musical number as the men while away the night guarding the prison.
