Gun-slinging capers and epic posse rides into the sunset have excited the imagination of audiences around the world for over 100 years. The Western remains a staple of movies to this day and has strong narrative footholds that subscribe to audiences that love a certain mix of grit, romance, survival, and history on their entertainment menu. Usually, westerns will enchant audiences with their usual ingredients full of gunsmoke and great train robberies, but sometimes, the Western genre is experimented with to test the waters of what can be done in a frontier setting.

There are many under-the-radar yet Hollywood-made westerns that have all the ingredients and budget to successfully invent within the genre. However, not all of them took, and some were everything an audience could want from a Western, but it just wasn't the right time. Like most films in an era of oversaturation, it's a matter of time that buries them deep in the past unless they were extremely influential. Which westerns are worth exploring and enjoying that deserve one more curious watch?

10 Wild Wild West

Very loosely based on the 1965 Western TV series of the same name, Wild Wild West was an experiment to see if the Western genre could be flavored to meet the demand for high-effects action genres of the '90s. With Batman, Zorro, James Bond, and Star Wars dazzling the big screen again, the era of special effects experimentation and action-comedy was at an all-time high. With '90s heavy hitters like Will Smith, Kevin Kline Salma Hayek, and Kenneth Branagh, how could it fail?

The film itself was a huge popcorn movie for the time, but the rewriting of an old western classic into a steampunk fever dream for an excuse to fit in a giant mechanical fire-breathing spider mech was just a little too much for lovers of the genre to handle. The wild action and weird science in the film alienated those familiar with the original series, as the film took the secret agent angle too far into the realm of a James Bond film full of modern gadgets rather than a plot. That being said, it's considered a cult classic for those who love wild action films and films that have done really well at the Razzy awards, where Wild Wild West won 5 of its 8 nominations.

9 Dead Man

The 90s were also a high point for the up-and-coming Johnny Depp whose career was flexibly working between heavy-hitting films and experimental big-budget features. Dead Man is about an accountant named William Blake, who meets a Native American named Nobody who prepares William for his spiritual journey.

Filmed completely in black and white and featuring other screen greats like John Hurt, Iggy Pop, and The Usual Suspects' Gabriel Byrne, this film methodically takes audiences on an existential journey through the West that only the bizarre tastes of Jim Jarmusch can deliver as both a director and writer.

8 Hawmps!

What happens when a stranger-than-fiction piece of history meets a comedy western? Hawmps! is about the U.S. Cavalry's experimentation with using camels for a division for desert travel. Set in Fort Val Verde, Texas, Hawmps! Follows the very tongue-in-cheek adapted piece of history into a silly slapstick caper. Full of wacky characters and cartoon antics and a lot of camels, Hawmps! Frames the vague strokes of history into a silly picture wreathed in the frontier era.

Comedy western hits like The Three Amigos and Blazing Saddles definitely took precedence as early Western comedy hits and Hawmps! maintains a slapstick charm missed from the older times of The Three Stooges and Abbott and Costello. Some of the humor is quite dated, to be fair, but the wholesomeness and silly levity of this smaller-budget film is great family fun.

7 The Apple Dumpling Gang

In the height of the 70s, family television and film shows like Little House On The Prairie and The Brady Bunch had audiences adoring the enjoyable chaos and drama of families in unique, comedic, and thrilling circumstances. The Apple Dumpling Gang is the story of three recently orphaned children who fall under the guardianship of an enterprising business owner. The children are a handful to keep track of, but when they accidentally find a massive gold nugget in a run-down mine, the entire town is hell-bent on taking the children off of the reluctant businessman's hands.

Starring comedy stars of the time, Don Knotts and Tim Conway as a clumsy bandit duo always down on their luck, the film creates a beautiful and wholesome view of the old West as an atmosphere for not only family viewing but Western fans. The film has both comedic and thrilling action scenes, one even including a firefighting carriage that plummets into a river during a big fight and chase.

6 Forsaken

There's a subtle joy and beauty in film performances when two actors related in real life get a chance to play their exact familial roles in a film with one another. Forsaken is a wonderful love letter to the complicated relationships between fathers and sons in a Western setting played by father and son duo Donald and Kiefer Sutherland.

Ornery gunslinger John Henry Clayton (Kiefer Sutherland) seeks peace and closure with his father, Reverend Samuel Clayton (Donald Sutherland) whilst a greedy land-grabbing businessman antagonizes the town into selling to him. Brian Cox plays the cuss-full villain, James McCurdy who adds a dark humor to his scenes as he stresses over his plots to take over the town. It's a slower film but the performances of the stars really shine through this heartfelt western drama.

5 Rango

Johnny Depp gets experimental in full-color animation this time in Rango. A lonely and creative pet chameleon is marooned in the middle of the desert and comes across a town of other animal characters whose town has a horrible water supply issue. With Rango being a huge lover of theatre and film, Rango's journey lifts the mystery and suspects from the famous noir film Chinatown and builds a beautiful and bizarre ballad about this strange little lizard becoming a hero.

This odd and charming animated film is full of really bold script choices and adult themes that gracefully keep its balance in the PG rating and appeal perfectly to the Western lover's palette. The fun balladeering owls and soundtrack as well as its snappy editing is just as much a part of the humor as the script is, making it a great example of how to build adventure, comedy, and drama altogether into an animated film.

4 Tall Tale