The western has been one of the most prolific genres in American filmmaking, despite repeated shifts in popularity and content. It has been debated, buried, resurrected, redefined, and spoofed at various junctures, yet it never disappeared. So whether as nostalgic longing for a romanticized past or a critical reevaluation thereof, westerns continue to offer a characteristic blend of myth and history through which this quintessential American genre has influenced filmmakers worldwide.

Westerns are typically set in the transmississippi West during the second half of the nineteenth century, but might reach as far back as the colonial era or forward into the twentieth century, and geographically into Mexico, Canada, or Alaska. Most plotlines revolve around such staple characters of the "Wild West" as cowboys, Indians, settlers, outlaws, sheriffs, and the cavalry.

A great number of Hollywood stars (e.g. Gary Cooper, Errol Flynn, James Stewart) appeared in westerns during their career, but no actor was as closely identified with the genre as John Wayne, whose career spanned five decades and nearly ninety westerns. Wayne was the biggest male box office star in the United States between 1950 and 1965, working with such influential directors as John Ford and Howard Hawks on many classic westerns. Also among directors with important contributions to shaping or redefining the western since the 1940s are Anthony Mann, Sam Peckinpah, Sergio Leone, and Clint Eastwood.

This collection of western film pressbooks begins with works from the 1930s, the height of the "singing cowboy" movies, which emerged with the advent of sound film. It was also the era of B westerns, which operated with formulaic plotlines and sound-stage sets in order to offer low-budget entertainment. The 1940s were a transitional period characterized by darker, more sinister plotlines – reminiscent of film noir – as well as the rise of director John Ford, whose increasingly critical look at the American West was set against the magnificent backdrop of Monument Valley. The context of the Cold War added a political tone to many 1950s westerns, which also surfaced during the later stages of the Vietnam War, while revisionist westerns beginning in the 1950s set out to address the violence and racial prejudice at the core of the westward expansion of the United States. The revisionist trend carried on into the 1960s and 1970s with director Sam Peckinpah’s ruminations about violence and changing times, as well as Italian director Sergio Leone’s cynical spaghetti westerns, which introduced the figure of the anti-hero. Other developments in the 1970s were the western spoof, the sci-fi western, and even some crossovers into the realm of porn. With the spectacular failure of Michael Cimino’s high-budget Heaven’s Gate (1980), many declared the western dead, but the genre yet again proved its resilience in the 1990s – though that most recent run of westerns is beyond the scope of this collection.