The Searchers is a 1956 epic Western film directed by John Ford, which tells the story of Ethan Edwards, a bitter, middle-aged loner and Civil War veteran played by John Wayne, who spends years looking for his abducted niece.
While a modest commercial success upon its 1956 release, The Searchers was ignored by the Academy and certainly not regarded as a classic. In recent years, however, the film's prestige has risen and it is now widely acknowledged as one of the best westerns ever made. It also placed 12th on the American Film Institute's 2007 list of the top 100 greatest movies of all time.
In 1989, the United States National Film Registry's first year of selecting films for preservation, The Searchers was one of the twenty-five films to be deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Now a highly influential film, it has inspired other Westerns as well as dramas, science fiction, and even Bollywood films.
Ethan Edwards, returned from the Civil War to the Texas ranch of his brother, hopes to find a home with his family and to be near the woman he obviously but secretly loves. But a Comanche raid destroys these plans, and Ethan sets out, along with his 1/8 Indian nephew Martin, on a years-long journey to find the niece kidnapped by the Indians under Chief Scar. But as the quest goes on, Martin begins to realize that his uncle's hatred for the Indians is beginning to spill over onto his now-assimilated niece. Martin becomes uncertain whether Ethan plans to rescue Debbie...or kill her. Written by Jim Beaver
Ethan Edwards, an ex-Confederate soldier from the Indian Wars, finds that his family has been massacred and his niece captured by the Comanches and vows to bring her back and kill everyone of the Indians who did this to him. He travels for five years in order to find her and when he does realizes even though she has been found she has become one of them. Written by Christopher D. Ryan
When Ethan Edwards decide to go find the Indians who killed his family, he is joined by his nephew, Martin Pawley. The problem is that Pawley is 1/8th Indian and there's nothing in the world that Edwards hates more than Indians. The journey to find the Indians and Edwards' niece last for years. Written by
