Giant (1956)

The moment cattle money gives way to oil money, told across a quarter century on a Texas ranch of more than half a million acres. Rock Hudson's rancher Bick Benedict and James Dean's ranch hand Jett Rink both want Elizabeth Taylor's Leslie, and when Jett strikes oil on his own small plot, the old ranching order starts to lose its grip. George Stevens won the Oscar for Best Director, and it was Dean's last film. Leslie's anger at how the Benedicts treat their Mexican American workers gives it more bite than its scale suggests. Choose it for the big-sky version of the modern West, the one the later, leaner films on this list are answering.