How to watch John Wayne’s movies in order

Of American actors who have defined cinema and a genre itself, few are as iconic as John Wayne. Actually named Marion Robert Morrison, he appeared in more than 100 films throughout his life and won an Oscar. Such a legacy can be difficult to dissect, and below is what you need to know before you decide to sit down and watch a few, assuming you ever do.

To begin with, the entertainer most famous for his Western work alongside director John Ford began life in front of the camera with various uncredited roles as an extra. His first movie was Brown of Harvard in 1926, and he did not play an actual character until 1929’s Words and Music. In this musical comedy film, the man who put out a lot of bravado in later work played Pete Donahue. He was credited as Duke Morrison and the project was mostly made as a means to utilize deleted content from an earlier film. It does not appear to be available anywhere today, though you can see some photos from it over on I.M.D.B for the moment.

From here, Wayne did a number of other bit projects and did not catch his break until the release of The Big Trail in 1930. This was his first starring role in a Western, a project he anchored at 23, and it turned out to be a hit. Today, the piece has been preserved due to being historically and culturally significant after Wayne’s career exploded with dramas and comedies, the cowboy movies he became known for and even some serialized filmmaking with work like The Shadow of the Eagle. While he played characters with similar names, none of his work during this period got a sequel. By following his filmography for the order things were released in, you would be safe and not confused by the various characters the icon brought to life over the decades.

However, there is one exception.

In 1969, Wayne played the cantankerous U.S. Marshall Rooster Cogburn in True Grit. The film was well-received and earned a new adaptation in 2010 perhaps because it won Wayne his first and only Oscar. He reprised the role for another outing in 1975.

In the self-titled Rooster Cogburn, the character has to go on a quest for redemption alongside Katherine Hepburn’s Eula Goodnight. The work was not well received, though several critics did say the two stars did the best with what was available to them. Wayne’s final film was The Shootist, and he died in 1979 due to cancer. Some speculated that he had contracted the disease from an earlier movie.

Several of Wayne’s films are available on streaming and can be rented on YouTube, and they are not concentrated everywhere. Even so, the legacy of an unassuming man born in Iowa endures today for those who continue to discover his artistic output.