Open Range: All of Life's Lessons on Honor, Dignity, Individual Liberty, and American Purpose

Open Range (2003) is my favorite Western and, in fact, my favorite movie of all time. It is available on Touchstone OnDemand. It offers not only thrilling panoramic scenery but also poignant lessons regarding honor, courage, dignity, and personal liberty. Here are 20 of those lessons.

Open Range is a Western in the classic American sense. It conjures the stereotypical David and Goliath battle as between free grazing cattle drivers and an unscrupulous, empire-building rancher, corrupt law enforcement, and paid mercenaries in his employ. 

I watch it frequently, since I've gladly paid for the rights to do so, and have assembled the lessons I believe are most central to its narrative-- and the narrative of the American experience. They'll be lessons I pass on to my boys. 

1.         A man’s trust is a valuable thing.

2.         Every man has to pull his weight.

3.         I ain’t one to take a man’s confidence lightly; it’s best to keep rememberin’ it if you want your fair share of respect from men like Charlie and Boss

4.         Get yourself a trade and set up in a town you’ll always have a roof over your head, a bed up off the ground, and food no further than a café.

5.         Always liked me a sidearm with some heft.

6.         We’ll drink to good health for them that have it comin’

7.         Most time a man will tell you his bad intentions if you listen—let yourself hear.

8.         Beautiful country. A man can get lost out here; forget there’s people and things that ain’t so simple as this.

9.         Cows is one thing. But one man tellin’ another man where he can go in this country is somethin’ else . . . sticks in my craw.

10.       A man oughta have something to show he was here.

11.       We pay our way.

12.       A man’s got a right to protect his property and his life. And we ain’t lettin’ no rancher or his lawman take either.

13.       You may not know this but there’s things that gnaw on a man worse than dyin’

14.       I don’t know what you should tell her Charlie. This may be the last time she sees you in this world or you her, so tell her anything you can because she’s entitled to more than just your backside walkin’ away.

15.       Shame to go forever without taking the taste of something.

16.       Pretty day for makin’ things right.

17.       Well enjoy it. ‘cause once it starts it’s gonna be messy like nothin’ you ever seen.

18.       Fact is it’s what I always respected about you. What I always appreciated—how you treated other people. How you treated me. How you never looked for no trouble and that kept me from trouble.

19.       Not much for runnin’ from cowards.

20.       We ain’t givin’ up our guns. He’s gonna kill Button anyway. The only chance for him or us when we walk up there is these guns.

Of course, it is also a love story. But my wife insists that I mention her objection to the line in the movie, in which Charlie asks his intended bride rhetorically, “how is this [marriage] gonna work if you don’t do what I say?” Annette Benning chuckles dismissively at this. If you’re married, you understand this to be a universal reaction.

The last line of the movie? Let's go get our cows.