The Western You Think You Know? Think Again. Step into the real story of the Hollywood Western — the films that reshaped America.

In the 1940s and 50s, the Western dominated American cinema. But by the mid-1960s, audiences were shifting, production slowed, and critics predicted the genre’s demise. They said the Western was dead. They were wrong.

Still in the Saddle: A New History of the Hollywood Western tells the dramatic story of the Western’s unexpected rebirth from the late 1960s through the 1990s. Against a backdrop of social unrest, political turmoil, economic uncertainty, and generational change, filmmakers reinvented the genre, creating competing visions of the Old West that reflected a rapidly changing America.

The result? A period as dynamic, rich, and entertaining as any in the Western’s history. Featuring iconic films such as True Grit, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Wild Bunch, Little Big Man, and The Outlaw Josey Wales, the exhibition immerses visitors in the era through screen-worn costumes, dozens of vintage movie posters, film stills, and dramatic clip reels.

The exhibition unfolds across six themed sections, each exploring a distinct dimension of the genre’s evolution — from portrayals of Indigenous people, to the rise of new kinds of heroes, to the iconic legacies of John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and the filmmakers who reshaped the Western for a new generation.

Your experience begins the moment you arrive: A west-gallery entrance evoking Scottsdale’s former Round-Up Drive-In, and an east-gallery entrance styled after a late 1960s movie theater. From the red carpet to the scent of freshly popped popcorn, Still in the Saddle invites you to step into the cinematic world of the Western and experience how these films were originally seen — and felt.

It’s more than movie history. It’s a chance to rediscover the Western at a moment when Hollywood, and America, were rewriting the rules.