The Western film genre has become a cultural phenomenon. It was exceedingly popular between the 1940s and 1960s, formulating a concrete and recognizable formula we see in most Western movies today. That formula is typically a fight of good versus evil that ends in a gunfight between the protagonist and the antagonist. Sometimes, the sheriff is corrupt. Sometimes, there is a love interest involved. It’s a versatile formula, and although the genre’s popularity has decreased over the decades, it’s still alive today in modern Westerns like Yellowstone.