high noon or Rio Bravo?

It's not completely impossible that High Noon hit me harder because any moral that may or may not be in it managed to resonate more, but, come on, Rio Bravo is a weak comic farce of a Western, Hawks has done good Westerns, but prior to this you had, for example Mann's The Man From Laramie. Did anyone not feel the impact of any confrontation in that film? That's a western that hurts to watch. Rio Bravo is such a cartoon in comparison. Hawks and Wayne both generally know what they're doing but calling Rio Bravo a good western in the classic, non-parodic sense is like saying Crash (2004) offered deep social commentary. Don't get me wrong, flag waving and general ignorance aside I love Wayne, no one quite fills a frame like himself, but, as a previous poster noted, that's what Red River's for, not Rio Bravo.

Rio Bravo, by a very wide margin.

Simply put, everything there is to High Noon is right there on the surface, and, you know, there isn't much there to find--aside from a moral that you've seen a million times in a million other movies (viz. Stand up and do what you know is right even when no one else is there to help you). Plus, the corrosive misanthropy at the heart of the movie kinda makes it an unpleasant experience; I don't enjoy spending time with ANY of those people. The pain might be worth it if I were gaining much by subjecting myself to it--but I'm not.

Rio Bravo is less obvious (and more interesting to think about), less self-satisfied (but still has more important things to say about the human condition), and infinitely more entertaining.

I vote High Noon, but I love Rio Bravo as well.

I think it should be noted that this is a conversation that has been going on pretty much since John Wayne and Howard Hawks trashed High Noon in interviews in the '50s/'60s, so it's not like this is a new question that someone just made up on the spot. They believed their movie was a better response to the problem the sheriff faced in High Noon, and believed they had made a better film which celebrate masculine American values in a way High Noon did not.

And to all those who trashed Rio Bravo: John Wayne is the greatest Western star of all time. He was a flawed but great man and excellent actor. Dean Martin gave his best performance, Walter Brennan is wonderfully crotchety and lovable as usual, Angie Dickinson is funny and attractive, and Howard Hawks is one of the all-time great directors. Ricky Nelson admittedly can't act. The movie is one of the most enjoyable ever made, as well as one of the most critically studied, analyzed, and praised films of all time. When critics, film scholars, and other filmmakers rank greatest and favorite movies, Rio Bravo ends up near the top an astonishing amount of the time. Dismissing it as silly misses a whole heck of a lot, and trashing Wayne is just mean-spirited and willfully blind to any quality in a man except his politics.

Nevertheless, I like High Noon better. Gary Cooper gives one of the all-time great performances, and the heightened moral drama, expert editing, real-time events, and incredible tension just blow me away every time. In my opinion, the greatest Western ever made.