The Searchers (film)

The Searchers (film)

The Searchers is a 1956 American Western film directed by John Ford, based on the 1954 novel by Alan Le May, and set during the Texas–Indian Wars. The film stars John Wayne as a middle-aged Civil War veteran who spends years looking for his abducted niece (Natalie Wood), along with Jeffrey Hunter as his adoptive nephew, who accompanies him.

The film was a commercial success, although it received no major Academy Award nominations. It was named the Greatest American Western of all time by the American Film Institute in 2008, and it placed 12th on the American Film Institute's 2007 list of the 100 greatest American movies of all time. Entertainment Weekly named it the best Western of all time. The British Film Institute's Sight & Sound magazine ranked it as the seventh best movie of all time in a 2012 survey.