# What is the best Best Picture-winning western?

> Only a handful of westerns ever took the top Oscar, and they span six decades of how Hollywood pictured the frontier. Pick the one that still rides tallest.

*By YPB Team · Published October 28, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/what-is-the-best-best-picture-winning-western*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Unforgiven** — score 1000/1000
   Clint Eastwood's 1992 revisionist western about an aging gunslinger taking one last job, winner of Best Picture and Best Director.
2. **Dances with Wolves** — score 0/1000
   Kevin Costner's 1990 epic about a Union officer who befriends the Lakota, winner of seven Oscars including Best Picture.
3. **Cimarron** — score 0/1000
   Wesley Ruggles' 1931 frontier epic about the Oklahoma land rush, the first western to win Best Picture.

Tags: movies, hollywood, oscars, westerns