High Noon at 70: the politically loaded anti-western adored by US presidents
Loved by both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, the 1952 convention-defying film is like a political Rorschach test
April 2020
Lockdown watch
Vanessa Redgrave: 'I've sung the High Noon theme song by heart all my life'
Continuing our series in which artists suggest movies for lockdown, the actor recalls her first cinematic experiences and recommends Cecil B DeMille, Fred Zinnemannn and Ken Loach
May 2016
Lonely rangers: the dark side of westerns
The early cowboy movies were built on a simple moral struggle between goodies and baddies. So why did they so quickly evolve into psychologically bleak depictions of damaged souls?
October 2009
Digested watch
High Noon: Time to revisit this classic
It stars Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly and won four Oscars back in 1953, but if that's still not enough to tempt you to watch it, try our condensed screenplay instead
March 2007
Philip French's DVD club
High Noon
Philip French: High Noon was developed and initially perceived as an allegory about the influence of McCarthyism in Hollywood and America at large, and screenwriter Carl Foreman was a blacklisted exile in England when it opened.
March 2004
High Noon voted top western
It takes a special kind of lawman to outgun John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and the Wild Bunch. But it was all in a morning's work for Gary Cooper. His 1952 film High Noon has been voted the greatest western ever.
August 2003
High Noon: the presidents' choice
The 1952 western about Gary Cooper's sheriff and his one-man fight for what's right is the favourite film of US presidents says documentary on White House viewing habits.
