The Searchers

The Searchers (1956) is John Ford's landmark western you can watch online on iFILM. John Wayne plays Ethan Edwards — a bitter Confederate veteran who rides back to his brother's Texas homestead only to find the family slaughtered by a Comanche raid and his young niece taken captive.

The search lasts five years. Ethan's companion is Martin Pawley, played by Jeffrey Hunter — part Comanche himself, increasingly unsure whether Ethan means to rescue Debbie or kill her for having lived too long among the enemy. That ambiguity sits at the center of the film: the hero and the threat are harder and harder to tell apart.

Ford shot the whole film in Monument Valley, and the final image — Ethan framed in a doorway, unable to cross the threshold — became one of the most studied shots in American cinema. Directors from Martin Scorsese to George Lucas named The Searchers as a foundational influence. Stream it in full online on iFILM.