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My favorite part of the film has to be the attack scene when the Apache warriors descend upon the coach, trying to murder (or do worse to) everyone on board. There's a moment during the attack that contains one the most breathtaking stunts I've ever seen: an Apache man leaps from his horse onto the coach's lead horses. He's shot and falls to the ground, as all six horses and the coach itself drive over him. It was an insanely dangerous stunt to attempt - there were no CGI tricks to use or even hidden safety measures in place - but Ford and the stuntman (veteran Yakima Canutt, who would also double for Wayne in parts) decided to go for it and succeeded marvelously. It's an intense sequence.

All the technical components of the film are absolutely fantastic. Everything from the cinematography and editing to the art direction and costumes is first rate. The totality of all these aspects is what makes Stagecoach such an enduring classic. It doesn't just do one or two things well; it does everything at a high level. The editing was so impressive that Orson Welles watched Stagecoach more than 40 times in preparation for the making of his own classic, Citizen Kane, because he wanted to replicate its successful editing technique. The score is especially well done and adds nicely to the film, rather than distracting from it like some scores do. The music is used expertly to underscore intense or romantic or comedic moments, but never is overbearing. In fact, the score was so good that it won an Academy Award.

My only real problem while watching Stagecoach - due in no fault to the film or the filmmakers - is the picture quality in the version I saw. I recorded it off of TCM and they must only have access to an old print, since much of the picture was marred in one or more ways. There were noticeable scratch marks throughout and I feel the picture was far too dark at the corners in several scenes. The Criterion Collection did a complete remaster of Stagecoach in 2010 and I will eventually buy that version and see the film in the way it should be seen, under the best possible conditions.

After doing some research online, I learned how Stagecoach revitalized the western genre, bringing it back from its "B" picture dredges and placing it firmly in the "A" list again. In addition to winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and Best Score, Stagecoach was nominated for Best Picture, Director, Art Direction, Cinematography, and Editing and probably would have won several more if it hadn't been released in 1939 - the year of Gone With the Wind, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Wuthering Heights, and The Wizard of Oz.

Stagecoach is certainly one of the best westerns I've seen and the American Film Institute agrees, ranking it as the #9 western film of all-time, a distinct honor considering all the films in contention.

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