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Best Shootout Movies

Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of shootout cinema — measured across 3,794 indexed frames from 46 films, against a 408,752-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.

Shootout films over-index on tactical vest, cowboy hat and handgun — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.

  1. 1

    The Wild Bunch (1969)

    Sam PeckinpahDP Lucien BallardIMDb 7.9TMDB 7.6See in full on FrameThrower →

    It's 1913, and the "traditional" American West is dying. Amongst the inhabitants of this dying era are a gang known as "the wild bunch." After a failed railroad office robbery, the gang heads to Mexico to do one last job. Seeing their times and lives drifting away in the 20th century, the gang takes the job and ends up in a brutally violent last stand against their enemies deemed to be corrupt, in a small Mexican town ruled by a ruthless general.

  2. 2

    The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1966)

    Sergio LeoneDP Tonino Delli ColliIMDb 8.8TMDB 8.5See in full on FrameThrower →

    During the American Civil War, three men set off to find $200,000.00 in buried gold coins. Tuco and Blondie have known each other for some time, having used the reward on Tuco's head as a way of earning money. They come across a dying man, Bill Carson, who tells them of a treasure in gold coins. By chance, he reveals the name of the cemetery and the name of the grave where the gold is buried. Now rivals, the two men have good reason to keep each other alive. The third man, Angel Eyes, hears of the gold stash from someone he's been hired to kill. All he knows is to look for someone named Bill Carson. The three ultimately meet in a showdown that takes place amid a major battle between Confederate and Union forces.

  3. 3

    Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

    George Roy HillDP Conrad HallIMDb 8.0TMDB 7.6See in full on FrameThrower →

    Butch and Sundance are the two leaders of the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang. Butch is all ideas, Sundance is all action and skill. The west is becoming civilized, and when Butch and Sundance rob a train once too often, a special posse begins trailing them no matter where they run. Over rocks, through towns, across rivers, the group is always just behind them. When they finally escape through sheer luck, Butch has another idea, "Let's go to Bolivia". Based on the exploits of the historical characters.

  4. 4

    Open Range (2003)

    Kevin CostnerDP J. Michael MuroIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.2See in full on FrameThrower →

    Boss Spearman (Robert Duvall), Charley Waite (Kevin Costner), Mose Harrison (Abraham Benrubi), and Button (Diego Luna) freegraze their cattle across the vast prairies of the West, sharing a friendship forged by a steadfast code of honor and living a life unencumbered by civilization. When their wayward herd forces them near the small town of Harmonville, the cowboys encounter the corrupt Sheriff Poole (James Russo) and kingpin rancher Denton Baxter (Sir Michael Gambon), who govern the territory through fear, tyranny, and violence. Boss and Charley find themselves inextricably drawn towards an inevitable showdown, as they are forced to defend the freedom and values of a lifestyle that is all too quickly vanishing. Amidst the turmoil, life suddenly takes an unexpected turn for the loner Charley when he meets the beautiful and warm spirited Sue Barlow (Annette Bening), a woman who embraces both his heart and his soul.

  5. 5

    Bad Boys II (2003)

    Michael BayDP Amir MokriIMDb 6.6TMDB 6.7See in full on FrameThrower →

    Detectives Marcus Burnett and Mike Lowrey of the Miami Narcotics Task Force are tasked with stopping the flow of the drug Ecstasy into Miami. They track the drugs to the whacked-out Cuban drug lord Johnny Tapia, who is also involved in a bloody war with Russian and Haitian mobsters. If that isn't bad enough, there's tension between the two detectives when Marcus discovers that playboy Mike is secretly romancing Marcus’ sister, Syd.

  6. 6

    Slow West (2015)

    John MacleanDP Robbie RyanIMDb 6.9TMDB 6.7See in full on FrameThrower →

    'Slow West' follows a 16-year-old boy on a journey across 19th Century frontier America in search of the woman he loves, while accompanied by mysterious traveler Silas.

  7. 7

    The Quick and the Dead (1995)

    Sam RaimiDP Dante SpinottiIMDb 6.5TMDB 6.5See in full on FrameThrower →

    Ellen, an unknown female gunslinger rides into a small, dingy and depressing prairie town with a secret as to her reason for showing up. Shortly after her arrival, a local preacher, Cort, is thrown through the saloon doors while townfolk are signing up for a gun competition. The pot is a huge sum of money and the only rule: that you follow the rules of the man that set up the contest, Herod. Herod is also the owner, leader, and "ruler" of the town. Seems he's arranged this little gun-show-off so that the preacher (who use to be an outlaw and rode with Herod) will have to fight again. Cort refuses to ever use a gun to kill again and Herod, acknowledging Cort as one of the best, is determined to alter this line of thinking ... even if it gets someone killed ...

  8. 8

    Demolition Man (1993)

    Marco BrambillaDP Alex ThomsonIMDb 6.7TMDB 6.8See in full on FrameThrower →

    Frozen in 1996, Simon Phoenix, a convicted crime lord, is revived for a parole hearing well into the 21st century. Revived into a society free from crime, Phoenix resumes his murderous rampage, and no one can stop him. John Spartan, the police officer who captured Phoenix in 1996, has also been cryogenically frozen, this time for a crime he did not commit. In 2032, the former cities of Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Barbara have merged into peaceful, utopian San Angeles. Unable to stop him with their non-violent solutions, the police release Spartan to help recapture Phoenix. Now after 36 years, Spartan has to adapt himself to the future society he has no knowledge about.

  9. 9

    Hold The Dark (2018)

    Jeremy SaulnierDP Magnus Nordenhof JønckIMDb 5.7TMDB 5.4See in full on FrameThrower →

    Retired naturalist and wolf expert Russell Core journeys to the edge of civilization in northern Alaska at the pleading of Medora Slone, a young mother whose son was killed by a pack of wolves. As Core attempts to help Medora track down the wolves who took her son, a strange and dangerous relationship develops between the two lonely souls. But when Medora's husband Vernon returns home from the Iraq War, the news of his child's death ignites a violent chain of events. As local cop Donald Marium races to stop Vernon's vengeful rampage, Core is forced on a perilous odyssey into the heart of darkness.

  10. 10

    Back To The Future Part III (1990)

    Robert ZemeckisDP Dean CundeyIMDb 7.5TMDB 7.5See in full on FrameThrower →

    In 1955, Marty McFly receives written word from his friend, Doctor Emmett Brown, as to where can be found the DeLorean time machine. However, an unfortunate discovery prompts Marty to go to his friend's aid. Using the time machine, Marty travels to the old west where his friend has run afoul of a gang of thugs and has fallen in love with a local schoolteacher. Using the technology from the time, Marty and Emmett devise one last chance to save the future.

What shootout films are made of

How much more often each element appears in a shootout frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — tactical vest is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.

  • tactical vest6.0×
  • cowboy hat5.3×
  • handgun4.8×
  • rifle4.3×
  • police officer4.1×
  • horse3.4×
  • soldier3.2×
  • hat2.4×

How shootout films are shot

Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate shootout from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.

  • 83%eye levelvs 69% baseline

What breaks the pattern

Aeon Flux (2005) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.

Method

Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 3,794 frames from 46 films carrying the shootout label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (408,752 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.

Machine-readable: /api/list/shootout

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These are real movie frames, shown at reduced resolution. All rights remain with their respective owners; they appear here for study, commentary and education under fair-use principles. How these are meant to be used