Cowboy Love Stories on the Page and Screen

Pure lady-movie gold is a good way to describe Nicholas Sparks’ newest novel, The Longest Ride, which features two love stories: one a mid-century, postwar romance, the other involving a bull-riding cowboy. Yes, a cowboy. In a move that surprised no one, Fox 2000 snapped up the movie rights for a cool $5 million way before the book’s release. As Sparks knows, cowboys’ reliable mystique makes them just as provocative on the page as on the screen—perhaps that’s why so many of the best books about cowboys have been adapted into films. If you just can’t wait for The Longest Ride to hit theaters (boyfriends, be prepared), add these to your Netflix queue in the meantime:
Brokeback Mountain, by Annie Proulx. The novel grew from a short story that ran in The New Yorker, about a fateful romance between a rancher and a rodeo cowboy. Add Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Ang Lee’s eye for epic scenery to the mix, and you get a multiple Oscars shoo-in.
All the Pretty Horses, by Cormac McCarthy. Though considered by some to be McCarthy’s most accessible work, it doesn’t dispense with the author’s sharp insights into the culture of the American Southwest. In the adaptation, directed by Billy Bob Thornton, there’s a certain spark lacking in the romance between aspiring cowboy Matt Damon and love interest Penelope Cruz, but it’s still a decent pick for a Saturday night.
The Hi-Lo Country, by Max Evans. Both the book and the 1998 movie based on it, which featured Woody Harrelson and a young Penelope Cruz, are carried by a foolproof dramatic premise: two cowboys in love with one (lucky) woman.
Legends of the Fall, by Jim Harrison. Based on the last novella in a 1970s trilogy, both the book and the film center on Tristan, a rancher, soldier, and ferocious bear wrestler. Pitt’s hyper-masculine Tristan has great chemistry with Julia Ormond’s Susannah, but it’s the gorgeous mountain panoramas, which won an Oscar for cinematography, that steal the show.
Giant, by Edna Ferber. This mid-century goodie, published in 1952 and adapted to the screen soon after, is set in Texas. Its classic cast includes James Dean as a ranch hand turned oil tycoon, Elizabeth Taylor as the naive Leslie Lynnton, and Rock Hudson as her ranch-owner husband. Giant is more of a multigenerational epic with a few troubled love stories tied in than a romance in its own right, but it remains one of the best cowboy tales out there.
 Who’s your favorite fictional cowboy?