Searchers, The

Working together for the 12th time, John Wayne and director John Ford forged The Searchers into a landmark Western offering an indelible image of the frontier and the men and women who challenged it. Wayne plays an ex-Confederate soldier seeking his niece who was captured by the Comanches who massacred his family. He won't surrender to hunger, thirst, the elements or loneliness. And in his five-year search, he unexpectedly finds his own humanity. Beautifully photographed by Winton C. Hoch, thrillingly scored by Max Steiner, and memorably acted by a superb ensemble including Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Natalie Wood and Ward Bond, The Searchers endures as "a great film of enormous scope and breathtaking physical beauty" (Danny Peary, Guide for the Film Fanatic). Named the greatest American Western by the American Film Institute in 2008, The Searchers was among the first 25 films deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the U.S. Library of Congress in 1989, when it was inducted into its National Film Registry. Meticulously restored from its original negative, this masterpiece is presented here with unparalleled image quality.