The Searchers (Blu-ray)

Working together for the 12th time, John Wayne and director John Ford forged The Searchers into a landmark Western offering an indelible image of the frontier and the men and women who challenged it. Wayne plays an ex-Confederate soldier seeking his niece, captured by Comanches who massacred his family. He won't surrender to hunger, thirst, the elements or loneliness. And in his five-year search, he encounters something unexpected: his own humanity. Beautifully photographed by Winston C. Hoch, thrillingly scored by Max Steiner, and memorably acted by a superb ensemble including Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Natalie Wood and Ward Bond, The Searchers endures as "a great film of enormous scope and breathtaking physical beauty" (Danny Peary, Guide for the Film Fanatic). Named the "greatest American Western" by the American Film Institute in 2008, The Searchers was among the first 25 films deemed "culturally or aesthetically significant" by the U.S. Library of Congress in 1989, when it was inducted in its National Film Registry. Now meticulously restored from its original negative, this new presentation of The Searchers presents this masterpiece with unparalleled image quality, accompanied by an impressive array of special features.

• western