John Wayne's Favorite Movie Of All Time Won Best Picture At The Oscars

John Wayne is an American institution, and that's kind of a pity. The films he made from the 1930s through the 1970s all presented what many consider the most persistent cinematic archetypes of old-world machismo. Wayne was a symbol of stalwart, unbending manliness, a testament to the power of being gruff and insoluble. It is, however, hard to accept him as a positive role model when one recalls how bigoted he was in life. Every few years, his 1971 interview with Playboy Magazine resurfaces and a new crowd discovers Wayne vaunting the values of white supremacy and flippantly excoriating minorities.

He also, in that interview, talked about the moral righteousness of his old Westerns, saying that Europeans were in the right for stealing American land from the First Nation people. He was pretty despicable.

But he was also one of the biggest movie stars of all time, and cinema lovers have to recognize that his mainstream Hollywood output helped shaped the industry for years. American cinema had to reckon with — and continues to reckon with — Wayne's legacy, fighting some of the racist images he and his frequent collaborator John Ford introduced into the pop consciousness. Whether we like it or not, Wayne is one of the beings at the center of America's cinematic consciousness, and we need to be aware of both the positive and negative things he contributed.

Something we can certainly analyze was Wayne's taste in movies. Back in 1977, the People's Almanac sent out a form letter to Wayne asking him to fill in his five favorite movies of all time. Some of his choices might be predictable, but his #1 film might take readers by surprise: Wayne was very fond of Fred Zinneman's 1966 historical drama "A Man for All Seasons," which starred Paul Scofield as Sir Thomas More.

"A Man for All Seasons" took place in England in the 1530s during the reign of King Henry VIII (Robert Shaw). The story follows Henry's attempts to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, and his ultimate seizing of church power to become supreme head of the Church of England, an organization that crushed state power and church power together into a massive all-controlling entity. More, a devout Catholic, deeply opposed the King's movement to form a new church. He also had to stand strong against the growing influence of Martin Luther, as his famed 95 Theses protesting the Catholic Church were published less than 20 years before.

The film depicted More's stalwart Catholic beliefs and eventually saw the character stand trial, where Henry VIII convicted him for treason. More refused to sign Henry's Oath of Supremacy and was ultimately executed. More was eventually canonized as a Catholic saint, and his story is an excellent choice for a cinematic adaptation. Leo McKern played Thomas Cromwell and Orson Welles played the Cardinal Wolsey. Vanessa Redgrave also costarred as Anne Boleyn, with John Hurt playing a supporting role as Richard Rich.

One cannot say why John Wayne was drawn to a British historical drama about the formation of the Protestant Church, although his own personal religious journey may've had something to do with it. Wayne was raised Presbyterian, but eventually converted to Catholicism right at the end of his life. Either Wayne was drawn to the formality and hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, and "A Man for All Seasons" strengthened his interests, or "A Man for All Seasons" opened his eyes to a new way of worship, and made Catholicism a viable option for his beliefs. Whatever the case, Wayne didn't go on record as to why he liked the movie. He merely felt it was one of the best.

"A Man for All Seasons" was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won six, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Costumes, and Best Cinematography.

The other four films in John Wayne's top-five aren't as surprising as "A Man for All Seasons." At #2, he selected Victor Fleming's tale of the Fallen South "Gone With the Wind," a four-hour epic about the end of the Confederacy and the journey of the romantically selfish Scarlett O'Hara (Vivian Leigh). The film, based on a novel by Margaret Mitchell, won fistfuls of Oscars and was widely celebrated for decades as one of the pinnacles of Hollywood filmmaking. Throughout its life, however, "Wind" has also been widely criticized for romanticizing slavery and encouraging the historical revisionism that the Confederacy was some sort of noble "Lost Cause." 

Wayne's #3 choice may be obscure to modern audiences, but he selected Vincente Minnelli's 1962 drama "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse." Based on a novel by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, "Horsemen" was another expensive 1960s epic (it runs 153 minutes) at a time when overspending was in vogue. It begins on a ranch in Argentina in 1936 and follows a local family after one of their members announces that he has joined the Nazi party. The film then depicts the slow, tragic encroachment of fascism. Wayne, who played an American soldier multiple times, likely dug the anti-Nazi message (itself the opposite of the white supremacist rhetoric he espoused).

Numbers four and five were, self-servingly, two of Wayne's own movies, both of them directed by John Ford. He loved "The Searchers," his 1956 Western, and "The Quiet Man," his 1952 Irish romp about manly men playfully fighting. "The Searchers" is certainly worth seeing for its unintended self-criticism. Wayne's character is presented as a hero, but after a while, he begins to read and more and more racist and pathetic. It's a movie that undoes its own message via modern interpretation. It's doubtful, however, that Wayne appreciated it through a postmodern eye.