Kevin Costner has cemented himself as a distinguished figurehead of Western cinema. His Oscar-winning epic Dances with Wolves is widely regarded as one of Kevin Costner's greatest movies. However, too often overlooked is Costner's Open Range, a gritty adaptation of the 1990 Lauran Paine novel The Open Range Men that not only marked the actor's directorial return: it also reconfirmed his deep, almost encyclopedic knowledge of the Western genre. 65i4f

An Old West historian takes a look at select scenes from Kevin Costner's Open Range, praising their historical accuracy. Released in 2003, Open Range stars Costner as Charley Waite, a former gunslinger who must return to his old, violent ways when his cattle crew is threatened by a corrupt lawman. The film, which was well-regarded by critics at the time, also stars Robert Duvall, Diego Luna, and the late Michael Gambon.

Kevin Costner has been responsible for some true Western classics, although not every one of his Westerns has been a hit. Westerns in general used to be one of the most popular movie genres, but around the '60s, their popularity started to wane. Audiences and filmmakers started to feel Westerns were too old-fashioned, though Clint Eastwood's Dollars trilogy and the Spaghetti Westerns they inspired gave the genre a shot in the arm. The abject failure of 1980's expensive epic Heaven's Gate was likely the nail in the coffin when it came to studios seeing the genre as financially viable.

With filming to take place in Spain’s Almería, where The Good, The Bad And The Ugly was shot, Strange Way Of Life is a film that aims to revive the western genre in modern times. Pedro Almodóvar will direct Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke in a half-hour story about two gunslingers that reunite after 25 years (per Collider).

Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain, undoubtedly, was more of an exception rather than the norm in of its overwhelming success. Considered one of the best dramas of the 21st century, it managed to take the Western genre and spin it on its head, adding in romance as it has never been done before.

Here's where Kevin Costner's underrated 2003 western Open Range was shot. Kevin Costner has a long history with the western genre, with his first breakout role being the 1985 ensemble Silverado with Kevin Kline and Scott Glenn. One of the highlights of Costner's career was starring and directing Dances With Wolves, where he plays an army officer who s an Indian tribe. The movie was pegged in the press as a vanity project that was destined to fail prior to release, but it was both a huge critical and commercial success. It also won Best Picture and Best Director at the Academy Awards, controversially beating out Martin Scorcese gangster masterpiece Goodfellas.