Which decade had the best Western s?
1970’s
About 80% of all westerns ever made involve somebody chasing somebody.
In terms of production standards, acting talent, and authenticity, I’d have to say late '40s to early '60s. True Grit and The Cowboys, which came out in 1969 and 1972, respectively, and starred John Wayne, are outliers of that era.
Sergio Leone came along in the mid-60’s and gave authenticity a real shot in the arm. Practically every Western since has been brutal and graphically violent, with everything filthy and practically smelling of horse shit. I love those!
I honestly believe that the best westerns of the last 30 years (Unforgiven, Tombstone, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, et al) compare favorably to those of any prior era, though there have been some really bad ones, too.
And if we can broaden this to include television, as much as I loved Maverick and Gunsmoke, modern shows like Lonesome Dove and Hell on Wheels just blow them out of the water. It’s not a fair comparison, but it’s true.
The 60s, more or less.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, etc. And of course the Big Ones:* The Hallelujah Trail* and The Cheyenne Social Club (which came out in 1970).
American westerns: 1950s
Italian westerns: 1960s
This thread, for some reason, makes me think of the outfit Doc dressed Marty up in before sending him back to 1885, based on how cowboys dressed in 1955 movies and television. 
February 1974
“The Sheriff is a NiBONGer!”
[=mediatype%3A%22movies%22"]Tom Mix](Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine[) cowboy movies are in the public domain, and thus free. Can’t beat free.
Well, My Darling Clementine came out in 1946, so there’s that.
Also, one of the excellent Trinity cowboy spoof movies was accidentally made public domain, but it’s not anywhere online as far as I can tell. Maybe it’s “public domain” in the same sense as It’s a Wonderful Life is, ie, not really.
You’re rapidly becoming an underground sensation around here.
I’ma go with 85-95. That gets me everything from Silverado to Unforgiven to Tombstone to the (IMO, quite underrated) The Quick and the Dead, while also including Dances with Wolves, Young Guns, City Slickers and B2TF III.
My second choice would be the 70s, the golden age of Revisionist Westerns.* Man Called Horse*, Outlaw Josey Wales, that kind of thing.
I’d agree with this. If the all-time argument is John Wayne versus Clint Eastwood, fans of the former can point to True Grit and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and fans of the latter can say he hit three spaghetti westerns out of the damn park in time to Batman it up in Hang ‘Em High; but if we for some reason disregard those, and also Henry Fonda in Once Upon A Time In The West and How The West Was Won — and also the light comedy of Support Your Local Sheriff, and the ultraviolence of The Wild Bunch — the ‘60s start with The Magnificent Seven and end with Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid.
I don’t see that getting beaten.
(I mean, you could maybe go 1959-1969, to also loop in Robert Mitchum’s sleepy-eyed tough-guy schtick in The Wonderful Country along with Gary Cooper’s award-winning plainspokenness in They Came To Cordura — but I figure we’d kind of just be quibbling over mere details at that point.)
You use your tongue prettier than a twenty-dollar whore! 
I don’t know. John Ford made The Searchers, with John Wayne, in 1956. Maybe that’s an outlier, but it doesn’t have the feel (or the look) of a '60s film.
It’s a great flick, but starting a decade of westerns that far back means we’d have to lose The Good, The Bad And The Ugly and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to make it fit — which, sure, adds in that memorable John Wayne performance, but only by kicking out his Oscar-winning one from True Grit. Not sure I’d make that trade.
I considered The Searchers in coming up with my range. I see it as the culmination of the classic western era rather than the beginning of the modern period.