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Movies that feel like Fort Apache (1948)

If you loved Fort Apache, the closest films we have are Stagecoach (1939), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949). All three share Fort Apache's gritty feel, which is what we rank on before quality. 8 of the 12 picks below are included with a subscription right now on HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video and Criterion Channel and others, checked against today's data.

Owen Thursday sees his new posting to the desolate Fort Apache as a chance to claim the military honour which he believes is rightfully his. Arrogant, obsessed with military form and ultimately self-destructive, he attempts to destroy the Apache chief Cochise after luring him across the border from Mexico, against the advice of his subordinates.

πŸ… 100% Rotten Tomatoesβ˜… 7.4 IMDb β†—TMDB β†—dir. John Fordgritty

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If Fort Apache hit the spot, these will too

Stagecoach poster
Stagecoach
1939 Β· dir. John Ford
πŸ… 100%β˜… 7.8western

John Ford directing both, with the same fingerprints on each

A group of people traveling on a stagecoach find their journey complicated by the threat of Geronimo, and learn something about each other in the process.

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The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance poster
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
1962 Β· dir. John Ford
πŸ… 95%β˜… 8.1western

John Ford working the same nerve twice

Questions arise when Senator Stoddard attends the funeral of a local man named Tom Doniphon in a small Western town. Flashing back, we learn Doniphon saved Stoddard, then a lawyer, when he was roughed up by a crew of outlaws terrorizing the town, led by Liberty Valance. As the territory's safety hung in the balance, Doniphon and Stoddard, two of the only people standing up to him, proved to be very important, but different, foes to Valance.

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She Wore a Yellow Ribbon poster
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
1949 Β· dir. John Ford
πŸ… 91%β˜… 7.2drama Β· western

Western built on grit, twice over

The difference: Sits closer to drama than Fort Apache does

On the eve of retirement, Captain Nathan Brittles takes out a last patrol to stop an impending massive Indian attack. Encumbered by women who must be evacuated, Brittles finds his mission imperiled.

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The Searchers poster
The Searchers
1956 Β· dir. John Ford
πŸ… 87%β˜… 7.8western

Both lean on grit more than on western

As a Civil War veteran spends years searching for a young niece captured by Indians, his motivation becomes increasingly questionable.

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The Ox-Bow Incident poster
The Ox-Bow Incident
1943 Β· dir. William A. Wellman
πŸ… 90%β˜… 8western

The same preoccupation in both: 19th century

A posse discovers a trio of men they suspect of murder and cow theft and are split between handing them over to the law or lynching them on the spot.

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My Darling Clementine poster
My Darling Clementine
1946 Β· dir. John Ford
πŸ… 100%β˜… 7.7western

Both keep coming back to the same thing: black and white

Three brothers stop off for a night in the town of Tombstone. The next morning they find one of their brothers dead and their cattle stolen. They decide to take revenge on the culprits.

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True Grit poster
True Grit
1969 Β· dir. Henry Hathaway
πŸ… 87%β˜… 7.4western

Gritty western, and it commits to that

The difference: Made in the 1960s, in a different era of the craft

The murder of her father sends a teenage tomboy on a mission of 'justice', which involves avenging her father's death. She recruits a tough old marshal, 'Rooster' Cogburn because he has 'true grit', and a reputation of getting the job done.

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Duck, You Sucker poster
Duck, You Sucker
1971 Β· dir. Sergio Leone
πŸ… 92%β˜… 7.5western

The same western instincts

At the beginning of the 1913 Mexican Revolution, greedy bandit Juan Miranda and idealist John H. Mallory, an Irish Republican Army explosives expert on the lam from the British, fall in with a band of revolutionaries plotting to strike a national bank. When it turns out that the government has been using the bank as a hiding place for illegally detained political prisoners -- who are freed by the blast -- Miranda becomes a revolutionary hero against his will.

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The Wrong Man poster
The Wrong Man
1956 Β· dir. Alfred Hitchcock
πŸ… 93%β˜… 7.4crime Β· drama

Both are built on the same subject: black and white

In 1953, an innocent man named Christopher Emmanuel "Manny" Balestrero is arrested after being mistaken for an armed robber.

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Pickpocket poster
Pickpocket
1959 Β· dir. Robert Bresson
πŸ… 93%β˜… 7.5crime Β· drama

A 1950s answer to the same itch

Michel takes up pickpocketing on a lark and is arrested soon after. His mother dies shortly after his release, and despite the objections of his only friend, Jacques, and his mother's neighbor Jeanne, Michel teams up with a couple of petty thieves in order to improve his craft. With a police inspector keeping an eye on him, Michel also tries to get a straight job, but the temptation to steal is hard to resist.

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Giant poster
Giant
1956 Β· dir. George Stevens
πŸ… 86%β˜… 7.6drama Β· western

Western approached the same way

Wealthy rancher Bick Benedict and dirt-poor cowboy Jett Rink both woo Leslie Lynnton, a beautiful young woman from Maryland who is new to Texas. She marries Benedict, but she is shocked by the racial bigotry of the White Texans against the local people of Mexican descent. Rink discovers oil on a small plot of land, and while he uses his vast, new wealth to buy all the land surrounding the Benedict ranch, the Benedict's disagreement over prejudice fuels conflict that runs across generations.

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TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay - Away from Keyboard poster
β˜… 7.4documentary Β· crime

Reaching back to the 2010s for it

TPB AFK is a documentary about three computer addicts who redefined the world of media distribution with their hobby homepage The Pirate Bay. How did Tiamo, a beer crazy hardware fanatic, Brokep a tree hugging eco activist and Anakata – a paranoid hacker libertarian – get the White House to threaten the Swedish government with trade sanctions? TPB AFK explores what Hollywood’s most hated pirates go through on a personal level.

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The best-reviewed films that share Fort Apache’s defining feeling.