Second sight: The Searchers

John Ford's The Searchers (1956) is consistently and deservedly hailed by critics as the greatest western ever made and one of the greatest films of any genre. The story of one man's obsessive search for his kidnapped niece across the expanses of the American southwest, The Searchers skewers and deconstructs the very genre it defines so iconically.

The archetypal western pits rugged, virtuous settlers against Native Americans, whose refusal to accept America's 19th-century expansion west is usually written off as a product of the same mental underdevelopment that makes them bloodthirsty savages.

The Searchers makes no such facile characterisations. Instead, it offers an unflinching portrayal of racism and its corrosive effects. The film has a chronic tension within which the audience negotiates how much sympathy the settlers should be given or in fact deserve.