| Festival | Where | Format | Planning use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Go West Film Festival | Greeley, Colorado; annual | 2026 edition runs November 9-14 with twelve free screenings over six days, downtown | Best for a short, walkable screening trip. Reserve seats ahead; a fully refundable $5 donation is required at reservation. |
| Lone Pine Film Festival | Lone Pine area and the Alabama Hills | Movie location tours coordinated every year with the BLM, which oversees the Alabama Hills | Best for set and location fans. Tours are limited to 10 cars and/or 20 people, sell out quickly and keep a waiting list. |
Figures above come from the Go West Film Festival site and the Lone Pine Film Festival tours page.
Western film festivals range from a free downtown screening series in Greeley, Colorado to guided tours of Old West movie locations. Pick by format first, then book early, because seats and tour places are the limited part.
These events sit inside the wider calendar of western festivals. If you would rather watch working-cowboy competition than screens, ranch rodeo events are a different kind of outing.
Shortlisting: which festivals focus on western films
Two established festivals are clearly built around the western: Go West in Greeley and the Lone Pine Film Festival. A third group, general film festivals, is useful mainly to filmmakers. Decide whether you want screenings, locations or a submission route, and the shortlist makes itself.
Go West Film Festival, Greeley, Colorado
The Go West Film Festival celebrates the genre of Western film every year in Greeley, Colorado. It also explores social and environmental issues currently affecting the West, so it suits viewers who care about how films treat the present-day region as well as the genre label.
The 2026 edition runs November 9-14 and is built around twelve free screenings over six days in downtown Greeley. Screenings take place at the High Plains Library District’s Library Innovation Center and at Kress Cinema and Lounge. The 2026 lineup has been announced, so you can choose films before you travel.
Lone Pine Film Festival and the Alabama Hills
The Lone Pine Film Festival puts the movie set at the centre. Its tours visit the Alabama Hills, which the festival says have appeared in over 450 films, and the tours are coordinated every year with the BLM, which oversees the hills. This is the better choice if you want to stand where scenes were shot rather than sit through a programme.
One tour is themed on Audie Murphy’s Hell Bent for Leather, which the festival calls arguably the best of the westerns he shot in the Lone Pine area. A separate horseback option comes from McGee Creek Pack Station, which presents a trail ride through the Alabama Hills with a Western film historian.
General and competition festivals
Not every film festival with a western connection is a western festival. The Heartland Film Festival is a general festival, ranked the number one Best Film Festival in the 2026 USA TODAY 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards. Its narrative feature grand prize is a $20,000 cash prize, and its 35th edition announced $80,000 in cash prizes. Treat it as a benchmark for what a large festival offers filmmakers, not as a place to find a western lineup.
The Western Hunter Film Festival shows a competition structure of another kind. Its 2024 winners were announced across Professional and Amateur, and Short and Long, categories. If you make films, that split tells you to check which tier fits your work before you enter.
Ticketing, passes and reservations
Ticketing differs sharply between the two main western events, so confirm the current rules on each official site before you plan travel. Go West uses reservations rather than a paid pass. Lone Pine sells limited places on individual tours.
Reserving free Go West seats
Admission to Go West 2026 is free, but the festival requires a fully refundable $5 donation when you reserve your tickets. That deposit is a practical filter against unclaimed seats. It also means you should reserve for each film you really intend to see rather than hold places speculatively.
- Check the lineup. Open the Go West site and note the films you want among the twelve screenings.
- Reserve seats. Complete the reservation for each chosen screening, including the refundable $5 donation.
- Match venue to film. Confirm whether each screening is at the Library Innovation Center or Kress Cinema and Lounge before you travel.
Booking Lone Pine tours
Lone Pine tours are limited to 10 cars and/or 20 people. The festival warns that they sell out quickly and that a waiting list exists, so these are the places to secure first. Booking is by phone through the festival’s ticket coordinator.
- Choose your tour. Read the current tour listing and pick the sessions that fit your schedule.
- Call the ticket coordinator. Phone to reserve, and join the waiting list if your first choice is full.
- Plan your car. Group size is counted in cars and people, so settle who is driving before you call.
What western movie festivals usually include
The supported pattern is screenings, location experiences and competitions, not a single fixed menu. Go West is mostly a screening festival: free films over six days at library and cinema venues in downtown Greeley.
Lone Pine adds the movie set itself. Its tours pair on-site visits with film context, and the 2023 listing included a pre-tour screening of Guns of Hate on Friday at 7:30 am at the High School Auditorium. That listing also showed Friday sessions on October 6, so use it as an example of the format and read the current year’s page for real dates. Competitive festivals add juried categories and cash awards, as Heartland does with its $20,000 narrative grand prize.
For a first trip, choose one anchor activity and build around it. A screening festival rewards arriving for a run of films. A location festival rewards getting a tour place first and fitting everything else around it.
Where oral storytelling fits
Screen westerns and spoken tales share a festival scene because both keep the same stories alive in different forms. Film puts the landscape and the legend on a screen. Spoken programmes put them in a voice. Lone Pine’s own wording points the same way, describing the Alabama Hills as true unheard storytellers, and its historian-led trail ride makes the interpretation spoken rather than projected.
If the spoken side is what draws you, read the cochise cowboy poetry and music gathering history for a gathering where verse and song carry the programme. Then use a film festival as the visual companion. That split works well because the two kinds of event ask different things of you: film festivals ask you to reserve seats, while gatherings suit a slower, listening-first visit.
After the festival: submissions and the next season
Film submissions are handled by each festival, and windows open and close on a yearly cycle. Heartland shows the pattern. Submissions are closed for the 35th Heartland Film Festival, and they open again this fall for the 2027 festival, according to its official page.
- Find the official submission page. Look on the festival’s own site, not a third-party listing.
- Match your film to a category. Competition festivals such as Western Hunter divide entries by Professional or Amateur and Short or Long.
- Note the reopening season. If a window has just closed, plan for the next edition rather than wait for an extension.
Go West suits filmmakers who want a western-focused audience, but check its site directly for any submission details, as the pages reviewed here emphasise audience reservations. Heartland suits those targeting a large general festival with substantial cash prizes.
Frequently asked questions
Where do the Lone Pine tours start, and what if I am driving alone?
All tours leave from the Museum South parking lot, per the tours page. If you are driving alone, tell the ticket coordinator when you call.
How long is the Hell Bent for Leather tour?
The festival notes that the tour lasts 2.5 hours, so leave time before and after it. Details are on the Lone Pine tours page.
How can I see what past Go West festivals showed?
The Go West site keeps an archive listing editions from 2014 to 2024, with 2020 not listed, and publishes the 2025 programme as a PDF.
Is the Heartland Film Festival a western festival?
No. The Heartland Film Festival is a general film festival, so use it for submissions and awards rather than westerns.
