10 Most Exciting Fist Fights In John Wayne’s Movies

John Wayne has been, and continues to be, one of the main icons in American Western cinema, with plenty of fist fights and action in his films. Known for his commanding and authoritative presence, he maintained a larger-than-life persona that included playing many characters related to law enforcement, war, and the frontier environment that he made his own for so many years. His penchant for playing good guys who took on the biggest and baddest challenges led to many scenes of action and violence and none so memorable as his iconic fistfights throughout his storied filmography that defined John Wayne’s career.

His most memorable brawls highlight and elevate the narratives being told with his unmatched physicality and intensity during the scenes. The final scene of The Quiet Man is celebrated as one of the best fist fights in all of cinema, a raucous and, at times, comical fight that perfectly ends the film. In McLintock!, his character, George Washington, incites a brawl that ends with the whole town fighting in a mudhole, which matches the pace and frenzy of the entire film. These scenes engrave the machismo and oftentimes violent ethos that made John Wayne films endlessly rewatchable and era-defining.

10 The Alamo (1960)

Starring John Wayne And Richard Boone

In this epic historical war film about the 1836 Battle of the Alamo, John Wayne stars as Davy Crockett, a legend from Tennessee who brings a gang of fellow adventurers to the battle. The film is known for its dramatized, yet realistic portrayal of the battle and expansive and stunning visuals of the combat and the surrounding landscapes. The ‘fistfight’ in this film has more to do with a unique custom involving balancing a feather on a person’s nose, with another knocking it off with a punch rather than genuine animosity between hero and villian.

While not an integral part of the plot or a piece of action that propels the story forward, this is a humorous stand-alone back and-forth that sees John Wayne’s Davy Crockett take and deliver two enormous punches. What really makes this important is the intensity and technique in which the punches are thrown; even though it’s a comical tradition designed to show toughness, it’s a compelling sequence that adds a unique aspect to the film.

9 Chisum (1970)

Starring John Wayne And Forrest Tucker

Chisum is a classic American Western directed by Andrew V. McLaglen and starring John Wayne as the leading man and titular character, John Chisum. A kind and successful cattle baron who just wants to live his life but becomes embroiled in a tense plot after an amoral businessman (Lawrence Murphy) forcefully buys up land and businesses in the area. Leading them to bribe a corrupt Sheriff to kill two of Chisum’s men and steal his property, causing Chisum to strike back.

Chisum is a tense and heart-racing tale that culminates in an epic final fight between Chisum and Murphy. The two trade blows and crash through walls in the second story of the townhouse. The action is fast-paced and relentless, with both men going back and forth before they both come crashing through the balcony and landing on the ground. The punches and action look and sound realistic, and Murphy ends up impaled on a bull’s horn on the ground below.

8 Hondo (1953)

Starring John Wayne And Ward Bond

This Warnercolor 1953 Western, directed by the legendary John Farrow, was based on Louis L’Amour’s short story, “The Gift of Cochise“. John Wayne stars as the titular Hondo Lane, a US Army Cavalryman who was attacked by Native Americans and seeks refuge and help from a local woman, Angie Lowe, who lives with her six-year-old son. Hondo, realizing the husband has seemingly abandoned the family, starts a courtship with Angie as they get involved in an Apache war.

John Wayne was one of the first Western stars to understand the importance of fighting in films. Beforehand, fights and punches were often punctuated with slapstick sounds and quick cuts, but Wayne thought that took away from the realism and integrity of the story and wanted to make things more realistic. You can see this in the fistfight in Hondo; it’s not over-the-top, but more measured and realistic, with Wayne and the absent husband Ed Lowe getting into a feisty, physical exchange with Wayne pummeling the man who left his wife and child.

7 The Cowboys (1972)

Starring John Wayne And Roscoe Lee Browne

A 1972 Western starring John Wayne, Roscoe Lee Browne, and Bruce Dern, it tells the story of Wil Anderson, a veteran rancher preparing to embark on a massive cattle drive across the country, but when his team abandons him for the gold rush, he is forced to enlist local schoolboys to help. Before long, trouble is afoot, as during their long journey, a devious gangster called Long Hair is intent on killing them and stealing the herd.

The Cowboys
is adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name by author, William Dale Jennings.

To make his fights more realistic, John Wayne trained with the legendary film stuntman Yakima Canutt (a stuntman since the mid-1920s) in order to understand how fights would play out and be fought in real life. This type of thinking was revolutionary at the time. Anderson and Long Hair get into a scrap around the campfire, with Wayne landing some sucker punches before they trade brutal blows. The fight ends after Wayne slams his foe’s head into a tree multiple times, causing him to collapse, one of the more genuine and gruesome ends of a fistfight in his filmography.

6 Legend Of The Lost (1957)

Starring John Wayne And Rossano Brazzi

In this Italian-American action-adventure film directed by Henry Hathaway, John Wayne stars as Joe January, an experienced guide in Timbuktu who joins a Saharan expedition to find and confirm Paul Bonnard’s (Rossano Brazzi) father’s claim that he found a lost city and treasure within it. A woman (Sophia Loren), newly obsessed with Paul and his ambition, invites herself on the dangerous trip across the desert, and the trio becomes entangled in a love triangle that goes south quickly.

The two fight, exchanging wild overhands amidst the backdrop of windswept sandy dunes. The isolation of the setting and the palpable tension that explodes into the battle make for a tremendous sequence, with perfect editing and realistic sounds, actions, and emotions throughout.

The fistfight between John Wayne and Rossano Brazzi is one of the main highlights of Legend Of The Lost. Tensions between the two have been brewing since the start, and once Sophia Loren’s, Dita, switches attractions between the two leads, sparks are bound to fly. The two fight, exchanging wild overhands amidst the backdrop of windswept sandy dunes. The isolation of the setting and the palpable tension that explodes into the battle make for a tremendous sequence, with perfect editing and realistic sounds, actions, and emotions throughout.

5 North To Alaska (1960)

Starring John Wayne And Stewart Granger

Slightly less serious than some of his other films, North To Alaska is more comedy and less drama. The film is set during the Nome gold rush and features John Wayne and George Pratt as two gold panners who strike a fortune of gold in Alaska. Wayne’s character travels north in order to bring back his friend’s wife (who are pen pals who have never met) but finds out she has married another man while he was away, so instead, returns with a prostitute before the whole narrative descends into further madness.

This film boasts one of the more comedic fistfights in John Wayne’s career, with him fighting and ruthlessly punching multiple assailants before being knocked into a muddy patch from under a group of horses. The fight goes from boxing to mud-slinging as the town comes together to help Wayne as he weaves away from danger, while Stewart Granger darts and slips between goats and wagons. The ‘slapstick’ works really well, and the townsfolk and an onlooking seal all have a great laugh throughout. It elevates the film and doesn’t take itself too seriously, which makes for a brilliantly choreographed fight.

4 The Spoilers (1942)

Starring John Wayne And Randolph Scott

John Wayne allegedly chose to study newsreels of then-heavyweight boxing world champion Jack Dempsey in an attempt to emulate his style and throw realistic and heavy-handed punches. In The Spoilers, this pays off in dividends as Wayne’s character Roy Glennister, who strikes gold, is trying to fight off corrupt politician Alexander McNamara (Randolph Scott), and the two square off in one hell of a fistfight.

It has been described as one of the greatest fistfights in Western history, which occurs at the climax of the film and sets the standard for future fights in similar films going forward. The battle between Wayne and Scott has all the features you expect and want from a great Western brawl. Set in a saloon, the two trade haymakers with both taking the upper hand at different times. The choreography was tightly framed, making the viewer feel like they were part of the action and with Wayne insisting on more realistic depictions, the action provides a satisfying conclusion to a brilliant film.

3 Donovan’s Reef (1963)

Starring John Wayne, Lee Marvin, And Jack Warden

This adventure comedy film follows three World War II Navy veterans, Donovan (John Wayne), Doc Dedham (Jack Warden), and Gilhooley (Lee Marvin), who all converge on a French Polynesian island (Haleakaloha) through various means. The three men get involved in a scheme to deceive the daughter of Dedham, who has recently inherited stock from a company that her father believes he has the right to own. Seeing fortune, the three men cause havoc in another lighter film in Wayne’s filmography.

The fistfight itself is almost as fantastic as the reason it takes place in the first place, Marvin and Wayne’s characters both share the same birthday and so, in a 21-year tradition, celebrate it by finding each other on the day and having a vicious fistfight. The premise is comedic enough, and both fight scenes are excellently shot, with beautiful timing on all the action (one involving multiple sailors); right hooks crash home, tables go flying, and the shots all land with visceral impact. An incredible set of action sequences that really stands out in one of Wayne’s most overlooked gems.

2 McLintock! (1963)

Starring John Wayne And Patrick Wayne

In McLintock!, John Wayne plays a wealthy, aging rancher called George Washington McLintock who, as a successful businessman, encounters a variety of personal and monetary issues as everybody seems to want a piece of his farmstead. Whether it’s the government, his own children, or a group of local Native Americans, the situation continues to boil and climaxes in a battle with Wayne, the townsfolk, and the warring Comanches and Army.

Known as ‘the mudhole scene,’ Wayne fires the first punch, knocking his adversary down a steep hill, into a watery muddle. This causes a mass brawl between bystanders, including men and women, with everybody taking their turn to be knocked down the hill and into the mud. The filming of this scene allegedly took over a week to film, and the choreography, with the amount of people and horses, combined with the realistic punches in a relatively slapstick fashion, all perfectly timed, would definitely bolster those claims. It is an incredibly intricate fistfighting sequence that really caps off the film.

1 The Quiet Man (1952)

Starring John Wayne And Victor McLaglen

A romantic comedy-drama set in the country in the Irish countryside, The Quiet Man tells the intriguing story of Sean “Trooper Thorn” Thornton (John Wayne), a retired Irish-American boxer who returns to his homeland in search of inner peace after accidentally killing an opponent in the ring. Before John Wayne’s emergence, many fight scenes were often overlooked or executed in an overly censored way; many physical actors focused on daring stunts and acrobatics rather than fist fighting that looked and felt genuine and become some of the best scenes in a John Wayne Western.

The ending of The Quiet Man is one of the most iconic pieces of Western cinema ever conceived, an incredible John Wayne fistfight that lasts for nine minutes, for which the entire narrative of the film was built. Thornton and Danaher go back and forth, through the entire village of Innisfree, involving the villagers, witty one-liners, brutal blows, and genuine technique and physicality. John Wayne not only elevated fight scenes in his own movies but pioneered and mastered their execution and inclusion for filmmakers for decades to come. The Quiet Man‘s final duel is spectacular on every level.