5 Classic John Wayne Movies That Haven’t Aged Well—and Why

John Wayne’s place among Hollywood’s most enduring screen legends is not really up for debate. Still, iconic status does not automatically make every John Wayne movie a classic — particularly when those films are revisited by modern audiences with contemporary expectations.

Born Marion Morrison, Wayne appeared in at least 185 film and television projects between 1926 and 1976, building a career that stretched across five decades. With a body of work that large, unevenness was inevitable. Some titles remain towering achievements, while others have aged poorly. Because of the era in which he worked, Wayne also starred in films that can be difficult to sit through today for reasons that go well beyond old-fashioned pacing or dated production values.

A number of his most uncomfortable movies are steeped in politics, and some now play unmistakably like propaganda. Other John Wayne films are weighed down by open misogyny, racial prejudice, or broader attitudes that modern viewers may find offensive or simply exhausting. The circumstances differ from movie to movie, but the result is similar: these five John Wayne films are among the hardest to watch through a present-day lens.

Wayne’s staunchly right-wing politics were no secret, and the 1952 film “Big Jim McLain” stands as one of the clearest big-screen reflections of those beliefs. In it, Wayne stars as the title character, an investigator for the House Committee on Un-American Activities, or HUAC, who travels to Hawaii to root out alleged communist activity alongside his partner, Mal Baxter, played by James Arness. Viewed in the wider context of American history, the film is a bleak experience — one that many contemporary viewers may find palatable only if they already see anti-communist crusading as heroic rather than alarming.

To be fair, “Big Jim McLain” arrived during the relatively early years of McCarthyism, before the full extent of the movement’s damage had become clear. The era would go on to ruin careers, destroy reputations, and brand people as “communists” simply because their politics failed to align with the right. Even so, it remains striking to watch Wayne, already known for his conservative worldview, play a HUAC investigator during one of modern American politics’ most infamous witch hunts — and to see the movie frame him as the unquestioned hero.

The 1958 John Huston movie “The Barbarian and the Geisha” is exactly the kind of culturally insensitive misfire you might expect from a film that put John Wayne in his usual mode during the era’s stereotype-ridden portrayal of Japan — as an official ambassador of the U.S., no less. You can already imagine the unsavory collection of clashing cultural tropes when Wayne’s persistent diplomat Townsend Harris hits Japan. 

Unsurprisingly, Harris’ all-American charm and brash tactics inevitably win over the locals and gains the attention of the beautiful geisha Okichi (Eiko Ando), originally meant to spy on the ambassador. However, what might surprise you is that “The Barbarian and the Geisha” is a comparatively muted affair that makes Wayne’s larger-than-life presence all the more inexplicable.

There are some indications that “The Barbarian and the Geisha” could have been a better movie. Huston’s relationship with Wayne was tense, and the director doesn’t think very much of the film, with Wayne and the studio tampering with it after Huston exited the project. Regardless of the post-Huston tinkering of the end product, the fact remains that Wayne is spectacularly miscast in the movie, making it a difficult watch.

“McLintock!” is one of John Wayne’s worst Western movies for many reasons. Apart from it simply not being very good, casting the unfunny actor in a comedy that draws inspiration from William Shakespeare’s misogyny-themed play “The Taming of the Shrew” makes it extra uncomfortable on two different fronts. The third swing and a miss comes from Wayne’s own behavior during filming. Wayne mistreated co-star Maureen O’Hara during filming, and happily recounted a time when she threw the non-consenting actress down a muddy hill in a 1976 episode of “Donahue” – all to show off in front of some hesitant stuntmen, apparently.

“I said, ‘Maureen, you ready?’ and she said, ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘Get over there!'” Wayne said. “She got over there. I said, ‘Stick me with a hatpin!’ She did and I went ‘Wham!’ Down she went, cursing at me all the way down, and the stuntmen had to change the amount that they felt that stunt was worth.”

Wayne and O’Hara were on good terms in real life, and this particular incident didn’t seem to have hurt their relationship in the long run. Still, from a contemporary point of view, knowing what O’Hara went through during filming doesn’t score Wayne any “McLintock!”-themed brownie points — especially since O’Hara wrote in her memoir, “‘Tis Herself,” that a spanking scene in the movie was also legitimate and left her bruised for a week.

One of the many things you may not have known about John Wayne is that he made an infamous pro-Vietnam War movie despite many around him criticizing the conflict. Said film was 1968’s “The Green Berets,” and is far from one of the best Vietnam War movies out there.

The story behind “The Green Berets” is that the Pentagon provided the film with a vast amount of access to military bases and equipment. In exchange, the movie’s script was reworked into an uncomfortable propaganda machine that presented Colonel Mike Kirby’s (Wayne) titular special forces as the greatest people in the free world, while liberal reporter Beckworth (David Janssen) is a doofus who will eventually come to see the error of his anti-war ways. “Star Trek: The Original Series” star George Takei has the uncomfortable task of playing South Vietnamese Captain Nghiem, sprouting clipped, accented dialogue that backs the movie’s pro-American themes.

Full of pro-war ballyhoo and uncomfortable plot developments, “The Green Berets” was co-directed by Wayne and Ray Kellogg, and rightly panned by the critics. History hasn’t been any kinder to the movie, which shows that Wayne’s famous patriotism could be deeply flawed in the wrong hands.

John Wayne could be self-aware when he needed to be. The fact that the 1956 Howard Hughes epic “The Conqueror” was a biopic the actor genuinely regretted filming is proof of the actor’s ability to look back and shudder at certain career choices.

If “The Barbarian and the Geisha” miscast Wayne in the role of a diplomat navigating the sociopolitical divide between the U.S. and Japan, “The Conqueror” takes things to a completely other level by making him play the Mongol leader Temujin — also known as Genghis Khan. Yes, this is John Wayne in blatant yellowface, delivering his lines in his signature Western drawl in a movie that treats an entire culture and period of history with the sensitivity and nuance of a pro wrestling gimmick.

Wayne wasn’t the only person who recognized that “The Conqueror” was a misfire, incidentally. The film was a disaster at the box office, marking the end of Hughes’ association with the movie business. The mogul hated “The Conqueror” so much that he embarked on a painstaking mission to buy every copy of it. He also habitually rewatched “The Conqueror” himself during the reclusive stage of his life, perhaps as a type of self-induced “A Clockwork Orange”-style penance.