The Searchers  is a 1956 American Technicolor VistaVision Western film directed by John Ford, based on the 1954 novel by Alan Le May, set during the Texas–Indian Wars, and starring John Wayne as a middle-aged Civil War veteran who spends years looking for his abducted niece (Natalie Wood), accompanied by his adoptive nephew (Jeffrey Hunter).  Critic Roger Ebert found Wayne’s character, Ethan Edwards, “one of the most compelling characters Ford and Wayne ever created”.  The film was a commercial success, although it received no Academy Award nominations.  Since its release, it has come to be considered a masterpiece, and one of the greatest and most influential films ever made.  It was named the greatest American western by the American Film Institute in 2008.  In 1989, The Searchers was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the United States Library of Congress, and selected for preservation in its National Film Registry; it was in the first cohort of films selected for the registry.  (More from Wikipedia)