First watched this as a teenager and failed to get too much from it beyond the spectacle of Monument Valley. The new HD restoration makes the film worth re-watching for the vistas alone, but the story really hit home this time. John Wayne plays a disenchanted Confederate soldier, looking for a cause and a direction following the end of the war. When his family is massacred by Commanche he goes after his niece, the sole survivor, reluctantly taking Jeffrey Hunter’s part-Cherokee neighbour along for the ride. What follows is a dark introspective look into the soul of a man forced to readdress his own identity, in a country struggling to do the same. The juxtaposition of this internalised conflict played out against an epic, savage wilderness, only serves to confirm The Searchers as one of the greatest American Westerns.