Go West! The Good, the Bad & the Bibliographical

The BFI went West in May 2006, and in conjunction with this extravaganza, the bfi National Library presented an exhibition in the Reading Room devoted to all things Western.

Our collection includes over three hundred books devoted to this wide-ranging genre, including the following subgenres:

• The golden age of the Hollywood western, which includes the films of John Ford and is noted for its spectacular use of American landscape and scenery
• The spaghetti western era, films shot in Italy on low-budgets, such as Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
• Comic westerns, such as Support Your Local Sheriff and Blazing Saddles
• Revisionist westerns, such as Robert Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller and Clint Eastwood's The Outlaw Josey Wales
• Contemporary Westerns, such as John Sayles' Lone Star and Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man

Our book collection covers film criticism, histories of the Western, full-colour picture books, biographies, memoirs, and screenplays. Whether you are an academic writing a treatise on the mythological hero as embodied in the classic Western or simply a film enthusiast looking for interesting reading material, the Library is sure to have something that will suit your needs. A selection of these books were on display in the Reading Room throughout the month of May.

A selection of articles from our periodical collection were also on display. Our periodicals database lists over 400 journal articles related to the Western. Our most recent articles examine Brokeback Mountain as a 'gay Western' and Tommy Lee Jones' directorial debut,The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, while our earliest one, from Bioscope, dates back to 1910 and discusses the popularity of Western films.

Further Reading

A selective westerns bibliography is available to download (PDF, 227kb)

For more information on the holdings of the bfi National Library, check our online catalogue or contact us.