Westerns were massively popular from the 1940s up until about 1960. As their popularity waned in the United States European studios began making them on the cheap. These so-called Spaghetti Westerns amped up the sex and violence and often eschewed the traditional conventions of the genre. By the end of the 1970s, the genre was entirely out of favor pretty much everywhere.

Much like the Hollywood musical, a good western pops up every few years, generates some buzz that maybe the genre is back, and then it disappears again.

I grew up in the 1980s, came of age in the 1990s. Westerns had mostly passed me by. I do remember Young Guns and The Three Amigos, Tombstone, and The Unforgiven. I liked those movies, but the western was still something foreign to me. It wasn’t something I would seek out. At least not for many years anyhow.

Oh, I’d watch some of the classics, films like True Grit and Rio Bravo, but mostly I stuck to other genres. But over the last few years I’ve started to really enjoy westerns and have begun digging deeper into its large well.

So I thought I’d make the theme for my March movie-watching westerns. I started to make a Letterboxd list of westerns I wanted to watch this month, but it was taking me too long to get it together so instead, I’ll just wing it. Most streaming services have a Westerns category and I’m sure to find others in various ways.

I couldn’t think of a catchy title for this theme so it’s just gonna be Westerns in March. But I look forward to watching lots of cowboys and gunfights, horses and the wise open plains. I hope you will too.