Revenge movies don’t come much better than Budd Boetticher’s 1956 Western Seven Men From Now. Ex-lawman Randolph Scott is devastated by a horrific crime committed at a Wells Fargo freight station. A gang of seven men successfully rob the station, heading off with a $20,000 booty. There’s one glitch: Scott’s wife is killed in the robbery.

This leads to a cross-country horse-bound chase sequence, in which Scott bumps into various drifters as he hunts down his wife’s murderers. This is not a simple cut-and-dried Western—screenwriter Burt Kennedy allows for a good deal of moral ambiguity. We’re certainly made to feel our hero isn’t necessarily entirely virtuous, and made to ponder the sense of revenge. Best of all, however, is the seething badness of ultimate baddie Lee Marvin. This guy is seriously nasty in one of his early roles.

In other Western news, the third season of the ’50s favourite Have Gun – Will Travel has been released on DVD, one of the very best TV series of this genre. Richard Boone rules! —MATTHEW HAYS