Name a more beautifully shot movie from that era...or even this era...

I almost made the exact same post last night.

At the risk of sounding stupid, this film is so gorgeous that it makes me a little teary-eyed.

Despite The Searchers definitely being beautifully shot, I beg to differ. There are a lot more equally or better looking, cutting edge and also aesthetic fulfilling movies, not only from the era, but from other eras as well. Speaking of the 50's, I'm going to let a list here, as a suggestion of other contenders, from the same era:

The Cranes are Flying (1957) from Kalatozov
The Forty-First (1956) from Chukhrai
Ashes and Diamonds (1958) from Wajda
The Seventh Seal (1957) and Wild Strawberries (1957) from Bergman
Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) from Resnais
The Bridge (1959) from Wicki
The Word (1955) from Dreyer
Tales of Moonlight and Rain (1953) from Mizoguchi
The Night of the Hunter (1955) from Laughton
The classics from Kurosawa

In there you find work by three absolute masters that I love, Sergei Urusevsky, Sven Kyquist and Jerzy Wójcik. And then other DoPs that have done amazing films, like Storaro, Yusov or Zsigmond, not to mention Directors such as Tarkovsky, Antonioni, Fellini, Bresson, Parajanov, the ones already mentioned and many others, including some more recent names like Kubrick, Angelopoulos, Kiarostami, Malick, P. T. Anderson, Ceylan, Sokurov or Zvyagintsev, among many others, but these are the names that popped first.

But this is not to diminish The Searchers, which is still a great, well photographed film.

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-You won't forget me now?

-No. I've got nobody else to remember.

The Searchers is a graduate seminar on how to shoot a motion picture and I agree that very few films have equaled it. Modern filmmakers would benefit if they realized that the camera doesn't have to be in constant motion to make a visually dynamic film. Ford keeps his camera stationary and allows the actors to create the movement. Case in point is the scene when Captain Clayton arrives to deputize Aaron and Martin. As Clayton sits at the table, there is a beautifully choreographed ballet of activity and overlapping dialog that makes for a dynamic scene and yet the camera never moves. Simple but beautifully executed. Ford uses the same technique on what is my favorite scene in the film. After the above-mentioned flurry of activity, Captain Clayton is standing at the head of table, finishing his coffee. Martha reverently hands Ethan his coat as he bends down to kiss her. Captain Clayton continues to sip his coffee while staring straight ahead, seeing nothing but knowing everything. All the while, the camera stays back, allowing the audience to eavesdrop on Ethan's final moment of anything approaching peace. The Monument Valley landscapes are breath-taking but for me what makes The Searchers a classic are the quieter character moments that demonstrate the great scope of John Ford's brilliance.

Jungle Book 1942 looks amazing and breathtaking on Blu-ray. The Searchers is gorgeous too, I love Technicolor but it can't top Jungle Book.