The Shootist

The Shootist (1976) is Don Siegel's elegiac western — watch online on iFILM and you're watching John Wayne's final screen performance, the last film in a career that began in the silent era. J.B. Books, the most feared gunfighter in the West, rides into Carson City to visit an old friend, Dr. Hostetler, played by James Stewart. The news isn't good: cancer, weeks to live at most.

Books rents a room from a widow played by Lauren Bacall, befriends her young son — Ron Howard in an early role — and tries to do something he never really could: disappear. It doesn't take. Word gets out that the legendary Books is dying, and suddenly every man looking to make a name for himself knows exactly where to find him. The film gives Wayne a character who mirrors his own situation — he was battling cancer during production — and that weight is on screen in every scene.

Siegel frames the whole thing as a meditation on what it costs to be a legend when the legend outlasts the man. Stream The Shootist (1976) on iFILM.