With his extreme close-ups of sun-weathered faces, endlessly stretched silences, and the hypnotic music of Ennio Morricone, Italian director Sergio Leone redefined the mythology of the Wild West. He discovered Clint Eastwood as a leading man and, with a handful of masterpieces, created the most influential style in film history. These are his eight best films.
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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
The ultimate epic of the spaghetti western. Clint Eastwood (The Good), Lee Van Cleef (The Bad), and Eli Wallach (The Ugly) hunt for two hundred thousand dollars in buried gold during the American Civil War. The legendary three-way standoff in the circular Sad Hill cemetery, set to Morricone's Il Triello, is the absolute pinnacle of cinematic tension.
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Leone's opera on the downfall of the Wild West with the arrival of the railroad. Henry Fonda stunned audiences as the ice-cold child killer Frank, while Charles Bronson's harmonica player seeks revenge. With Claudia Cardinale as the beating heart, and one of the finest film scores ever composed.
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Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
Leone's monumental swan song. A nearly four-hour-long, wistful gangster drama spanning fifty years in New York's Jewish ghetto. Robert De Niro (Noodles) and James Woods (Max) shine in a masterpiece about friendship, greed, time, and betrayal.
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For a Few Dollars More (1965)
The second installment of the Dollars Trilogy. Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef form an unlikely alliance as two rival bounty hunters tracking down the psychopathic outlaw leader El Indio (Gian Maria Volonté). Famous for its duels timed to a ticking musical pocket watch.
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A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
The film that birthed the spaghetti western genre and made Clint Eastwood a global star overnight as The Man with No Name. Leone reinterpreted Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo by having a lone gunslinger pit two rival families against each other in the border town of San Miguel.
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Duck, You Sucker! (1971)
Also known as A Fistful of Dynamite. James Coburn as a disillusioned Irish IRA dynamite expert and Rod Steiger as a Mexican bandit peasant accidentally get swept up in the bloody Mexican Revolution. A grim, explosive, and often overlooked masterpiece about revolution and sacrifice.
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My Name Is Nobody (1973)
Leone produced and directed large portions of this comedic, wistful ode to the western. Terence Hill plays the young, fast Nobody, who wants to push his aging hero Jack Beauregard (Henry Fonda) into one last legendary showdown with The Wild Bunch so he can retire in glory.
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The Colossus of Rhodes (1961)
Leone's very first official feature as director. A spectacular historical sword-and-sandal film about a Greek hero who gets caught up in a rebellion against the tyrannical king of Rhodes, with the famous giant bronze colossus as the battleground.
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