John Wayne’s classic 1956 westernThe Searchersis one of the most influential movies ever made, and it’s inspired everything fromStar WarstoTaxi Driver. Directed by western genre pioneer John Ford,The Searchersrevolves around Civil War veteran Ethan Edwards, who’s been struggling to find a new purpose in life since the end of the war. When his niece is kidnapped in the night, he embarks on an incredible years-long journey to find her. Ethan ultimately realizes he can’t have a nice, quiet, peaceful life, and that he belongs out on the frontier, seeking justice and retribution.
From Martin Scorsese to Steven Spielberg, a lot of young cinephiles were inspired byThe Searcherswhen they watched it as a kid, and many of those young cinephiles took that inspiration in their later filmmaking career. The themes ofThe Searchersare so strong and cinematic that their influence has extended far beyond the western genre. Its influence can be seen in the epic war dramaLawrence of Arabia, the post-apocalyptic actionerMad Max 2: The Road Warrior, and the moralistic vigilante thrillerHardcore, among many others.
For more movies like these, please check out the bestmovies on Peacockand the bestmovies on Max.
10 Best Scenes In John Wayne’s Western Movies, Ranked
John Wayne’s unforgettable performances in the Western genre have produced some of the most memorable scenes of his career.
When Ron Howard finally put his stamp on the western genre in 2003’sThe Missing, he took plenty of inspiration fromThe Searchers.The Missingis essentially a remake ofThe Searchers, with an even bleaker take on its themes of revenge, justice, and fractured family dynamics. Set in New Mexico in 1885,The Missingcenters on a medicine woman on the frontier who reluctantly teams up with her estranged father to find her kidnapped daughter.
Tommy Lee Jones plays the Wayne role as the grizzled, aging gunslinger who embarks on the search, opposite Evan Rachel Wood as the missing girl and Cate Blanchett as her mother.The Missingis very much on the same track asThe Searchers, but it alsorectifies one ofThe Searchers’ biggest problems with a more respectful portrayal of Native Americans.The Missing’s authentic Apache dialect has been widely praised.
When Disney decided to start making spin-off movies set in theStar Warsuniverse, its first order of business was a prequel explaining how the Rebels got a hold of the Death Star blueprints before the events of the original movie.Rogue Onedirector Gareth Edwards drew inspiration from a wide range of sources in making the film. The climactic battle scenes are inspired by Vietnam War movies likeApocalypse Nowand Chirrut Îmwe is based on the title character inThe Tale of Zatoichi.
Theopening scene ofRogue Onemirrors that ofThe Searchers. Young, pig-tailed Jyn Erso is hidden by her parents when their homestead is attacked by Director Orson Krennic and his Imperial cronies. Similarly, at the beginning ofThe Searchers, young Debbie is protected by her parents when their homestead is attacked by the Comanches.
Scorsese is one of the world’s most noted fans ofThe Searchers, and the influence of Ford’s western masterpiece can be seen all over Scorsese’s work. It’s referenced heavily in Scorsese’s first ever feature film,Who’s That Knocking at My Door. The story revolves around a Catholic Italian-American man wrestling with the rage and insecurity he feels after learning about something horrible that happened in his girlfriend’s past.That has nothing to do withThe Searchers, but the lead character is obsessed with Ford’s movie.
When Harvey Keitel’s J.R. meets Zina Bethune’s “The Girl” on the Staten Island Ferry, he regales her with his comprehensive analysis ofThe Searchers. J.R.’s obsession withThe Searchersties into his obsession with masculinity and the insecurity he feels when that masculinity is challenged. It’s a lot deeper than just a movie reference.
In Quentin Tarantino’s bookCinema Speculation, he discusses the parallels betweenThe Searchersand Paul Schrader’s gritty neo-noir thrillerHardcore.He even speaks to Schrader himself about the film’s inspiration.Hardcorestars George C. Scott as a conservative Midwestern businessman whose daughter goes on a church retreat to California and doesn’t come back. While searching for her in Los Angeles, the father is horrified to learn that his daughter has started working in the adult film industry.
Much likeThe Searchers,Hardcoresees a stoic antihero trying to save a young female relative who ultimately doesn’t want to be saved.And much likeThe Searchers,Hardcorecontrasts traditional conservative values with radical new liberal beliefs. According toCinema Speculation,Hardcorewould’ve been more likeThe Searchersif the studio hadn’t forced Schrader to include a happy ending.
In a recent interview withVanity Fair, director George Miller named allthe biggest influences on theMad Maxmoviesin terms of their themes and aesthetic. He listed a wide variety of movies, ranging fromBen-HurtoSafety Last!toHowl’s Moving CastletoOnce Upon a Time in the West. One of Miller’s biggest influences on the look of the post-apocalyptic wasteland and onMax’s characterization as a vengeful lone-wolf warrior wasThe Searchers.
InMad Max 2: The Road Warrior, when Max is up on a hill in the dead of night, keeping an eye on the biker gang camped out in the distance, Miller recreates a shot fromThe Searchers.The composition is practically identical toThe Searchers’ shot of Ethan sitting atop a mountain and looking out at the Comanche camp. Just like Ethan, Max is a man out of his time, trying to do the right thing.
Wim Wenders’ Palme d’Or-winning 1984 neo-western dramaParis, Texashas been noted for its similarities toThe Searchers.It revolves around a lonely recluse who teams up with his son and embarks on a road trip to track down his missing wife – the boy’s mother – who’s been out of their lives for years. This adventure isn’t quite as high-stakes asThe Searchers, but it explores the same themes.
At the time of its release,Paris, Texaswas lauded for harking back to the gritty, intimate character portraits of the New Hollywood movement in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.
At the time of its release,Paris, Texaswas lauded for harking back to the gritty, intimate character portraits of the New Hollywood movement in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. In the ‘80s, mainstream cinema had fallen into the commercial trappings of trite clichés and Hollywood endings.Paris, Texashas more in common withEasy Rider,Five Easy Pieces, andMidnight Cowboythan the average ‘80s film.
George Lucas has incorporatedThe Searchers’ influence into theStar Warssaga from the very beginning. Luke Skywalker returning to his homestead to find it up in flames following a brutal attack is borrowed from Ethan Edwards returning to his brother’s burning homestead. But Lucas laid onthe influence ofThe Searcherseven thicker when he returned to make the prequel trilogy. A key second-act sequence ofStar Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clonesis practically a mini remake ofThe Searchers.
When Anakin returns to Tatooine, he learns that his mother has been abducted by Tusken Raiders. So, he rides off into the desert to track her down and bring her captors to justice. But by the time he reaches her, he’s too late to save her.In broad strokes, that’s exactly what happens inThe Searchers.
While he was preparing to shoot his epic biopicLawrence of Arabia, David Lean repeatedly watchedThe Searchers(viaMTV). Lean referred to Ford’s movie to figure out how to shoot desert landscapes in the most breathtaking, cinematic way possible. All of Ford’s westerns are renowned for their shots of desert landscapes – he was famous for taking his cameras to Monument Valley – butThe Searchers, in particular, is full of iconic landscape cinematography along Ethan’s journey.
Freddie A. Young’s stunning landscape photography ended up being one of the main reasons whyLawrence of Arabiabecame such a beloved movie masterpiece and such a recognizable staple of pop culture. Clearly, those repeat viewings ofThe Searcherspaid off. Now,Lawrence of Arabiais similarly studied by cinematographers and cinematography aficionados to figure out how Lean pulled it off.
When Spielberg took onSaving Private Ryan,The Searcherswas one of the key touchstones in his approach to the material.There’s an obvious parallel between the story of a Civil War veteran searching for his missing niece and the story of a World War II platoon searching for one of their fellow soldiers. Spielberg approached the film as a big, bleak, cinematicJohn Ford westernset on the barren battlefields of the Second World War.
Spielberg makes this parallel clear when he copies Ford’s iconic doorway shot fromThe Searchers. When the Army arrives at Private Ryan’s mom’s house to deliver the news that another one of her sons has been killed in action, she’s framed in the doorway like Ethan Edwards.Saving Private Ryancould be described as a remake ofThe Searchersset during World War II.
Before directing his own gritty, modern-day retelling ofThe Searchers, Schrader wrote one for Scorsese.Taxi Drivertakes the basic premise ofThe Searchers– a traumatized war veteran embarks on a dark quest to save a young woman from her captors – and translates it to contemporary New York City.Robert De Niro’s Travis Bicklereturns from Vietnam with PTSD and insomnia. He takes a job as a cabbie to occupy his time and ends up setting his sights on liberating 12-year-old sex worker Iris, played by Jodie Foster.
It’s easy to see the parallels: Travis is Ethan, Iris is Debbie, and her despicable pimp Sport is the Comanche leader.The Searcherswas already one of the darkest and most violent westerns ever made. But Scorsese managed to make it even darker and more violent inTaxi Driver.
