Cheyenne Autumn

This last Western from director John Ford ranks as one of his most ambitious and moving works. Ford outfits his Trail-of-Tears-like saga with a strong cast, stunning cinematography by long-time collaborator William Clothier and a stirring Alex North score. To play the Cheyenne nation desperately struggling to return to the Yellowstone homeland across 1,500 treacherous miles, Ford recruited hundreds of Navajo tribesmen, many of them veterans of Ford movies dating back to 1939's Stagecoach. The location (which Ford used for the ninth time) is "John Ford Country" - the canyons, buttes and mesas of Monument Valley. And Cheyenne Autumn is compassionate, epic artistry from one of Hollywood's most revered filmmakers.