Here I will be interested in points of resistance and incompatibility between Shakespeare and film genres, in particular the case of Romeo and Juliet and the Western. One might expect that Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare’s most bankable play, would be an obvious candidate for adaptation into a Western, one of cinema’s most popular genres. In theory, it is certainly possible to bend the play and the genre in each other’s direction. In practice, however, Romeo and Juliet has seemed difficult to adapt as a Western. Why this is so tells us something about the limits of Shakespeare’s adaptability within film genres.