The Searchers 1956

Bosley Crowther, New York Times: A rip-snorting Western, as brashly entertaining as they come. Read more

Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader: Through the central image of the frontier, the meeting point of wilderness and civilization, Ford explores the divisions of our national character, with its search for order and its need for violence, its spirit of community and its quest for independence Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Contains scenes of magnificence, and one of John Wayne's best performances. Read more

Derek Adams, Time Out: There is perhaps some discrepancy in the play between Wayne's heroic image and the pathological outsider he plays here (forever excluded from home, as the doorway shots at beginning and end suggest), but it hardly matters, given the film's visual splendou Read more

Ronald Holloway, Variety: Some fine vignettes of frontier life in the early southwest and a realistic presentation of the difficulties faced by the settlers in carving out a homestead in dangerous Indian country. Read more