Before 1963, the dusty, dry, arid terrain of the Spaghetti Western subgenre was relatively unexplored territory among those outside the Italian border. Before then, the form these Italian cowboy flicks took was virtually unrecognizable to what the rest of the world was about to become accustomed to. Westerns of the spaghetti kind were predominantly action comedy movies before the godfather of the genre, Sergio Leone, and his identically named counterpart Sergio Corbucci, showcased their take on the gun-slinging cowboys of the American frontier.

Updated January 21st, 2023: If you love Spaghetti Westerns, you’ll be happy to know that we’ve updated this article with new entries.

Once Leone and Corbucci took to the scene, Spaghetti Westerns underwent a formidable transformation from virtual obscurity to Hollywood stardom, making people like Lee Van Cleef and Clint Eastwood Western movie stars. The style (and its inimitable musical style) would spawn a renewed interest in the Western genre over in America, along with a bevy of unique, splendidly bizarre ‘acid Westerns,’ such as Alejandro Jodorowski’s great film El Topo. Some of the best Westerns ever made have been from the subgenre of the Spaghetti Western, and here are some of the best.

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10 West and Soda

     Cineriz

Considered the Walt Disney of Italy, Bruno Bozzetto created his first feature-length animated film in 1965. It was West and Soda, perhaps the funniest parody of the traditional American Western ever made. Mixing all elements from classic Westerns (good guys, ranch girls, bad guys, horses, and so on) in one cocktail, West and Soda works really well, both the comedy and the love letter to the genre and its traditions.

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

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In 2015, Italian cartoon animator Bozzetto opened up to Avvenire about the Spaghetti Western genre breakthrough, saying that West and Soda can be considered the first Spaghetti Western because Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars production started a year later. However, Leone and Corbucci made Italian-style Westerns a household name.

9 Death Rides a Horse

     Metro Goldwyn Mayer

1967’s Death Rides a Horse is the first and best-known of five Spaghetti Westerns Italian director Giulio Petroni contributed to the genre. The film centers on a young gunfighter (played by John Phillip Law) who has spent 15 years planning a revenge bid against the gang that killed his family. He teams up with an aging ex-outlaw (Lee Van Cleef), who is also seeking revenge. Today, the film is considered a classic of Spaghetti Western. It’s not hard to see the influence of Death Rides a Horse in Tarantino’s Kill Bill.

8 The Big Gundown

     Columbia Pictures

Outside of Leone and Corbucci, the third Sergio, Sergio Sollima, made a name for himself in the genre. After directing Spaghetti spy films, Sollima moved to Spaghetti Westerns and released The Big Gundown (1966). The Big Gundown is the first part of the director’s Zapata Westerns (the sub-sub-genre focusing on Mexican protagonists) trilogy. The film follows a ready-to-retire bounty hunter who’s tasked with tracking down a 12-year-old girl’s accused rapist and murderer. But things aren’t as they seem in Sollima’s Spaghetti Western, which makes The Big Gundown a truly rousing movie.

7 Day of Anger

     Consorzio Italiano

Italian director Tonino Valerii, who got his start in the genre as an assistant director on Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars, made his own blood-drenched Spaghetti Western in 1967. It is Day of Anger. With Spaghetti Western icon Lee Van Cleef (best known as a star of For a Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) in the lead role, the film follows a sadistic gunfighter who takes over the town. Even though it plays out like a typical Spaghetti Western, Day of Anger can still surprise.

6 Django

     Euro International Films

Sergio Corbucci was an unknown quantity prior to the release of Django, which was ultimately his first real commercial success. Starring Frances Nero as protagonist Django, the film documents the movie’s titular character’s bloodthirsty hunt for retribution as he goes after the infamous Ku Klux Klan. Django was a massive source of inspiration for Tarantino’s 2012 smash hit, Django Unchained, which even incorporated the protagonist’s name, as well as several certified and uncertified sequels which have gained its cult status.

5 The Great Silence

     20th Century Fox

Corbucci directed some of the most violent Spaghetti Westerns. The 1968 dark and gruesome film The Great Silence is one of them. Set in Utah before the Great Blizzard of 1899 (although actually filmed in a mountain range located in Italy), The Great Silence tells the story of a mute gunslinger (played by Jean-Louis Trintignant) who joins a rural community in fighting ruthless bounty hunters. Corbucci’s brutal snow Western gained a cult following and inspired Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight.

4 A Fistful of Dollars

     Jolly Film

1964’s A Fistful of Dollars was Leone’s breakout western, and it just so happens it was the first installment of the acclaimed Dollars Trilogy. Starring the embodiment of Spaghetti Westerns, Clint Eastwood, who portrays the Man with No Name as he guilefully plays the town of San Miguel’s two already warring factions off against each other for his own financial gain, in a riff on the great Akira Kurosawa film Yojimbo.

Eastwood puts in a characteristic minimally expressive performance as the lonesome and enigmatic nameless man guided by his own strong moral principles. Through A Fistful of Dollars, Leone brought a sense of rejuvenation to a genre that was ailing, losing its direction and relevance. He subsequently began the restoration of this raggedy old ship and re-established its unmistakable identity while concurrently raising its standards by bringing it into a more modern 20th century.

3 For a Few Dollars More

     Produzioni Europee Associati

Following the vast fortunes of its predecessor A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More makes up the second installment of the Dollar Trilogy. It’s safe to say, this 1965 flick exceeds the lofty heights that the opening movie achieved, as ‘Manco’, the man with no name (played by Clint Eastwood), teams up with bounty hunter Colonel Mortimer (Lee Van Cleef) as the pair pursue a wanted criminal, El Indio (Gian Maria Volonte).

Ironically, it took an Italian to reinvent the entire Western genre, and another to musically illustrate the wild west; the tuneful whistling, straight-stringed guitar, euphonious harmonica, and atmospheric harmony of voices all crafted under the ear of one of the greatest movie score composers of all time, Ennio Morricone.

2 Once Upon a Time in The West

     Paramount Pictures

Sergio Leone, again? Once Upon A Time in the West remains ingrained in industry folklore as one of the greatest feats of filmmaking ever, following the story of the nameless, lonesome, harmonica-playing gunslinger, played by the masterful Charles Bronson who is out to exact revenge on a cold-blooded killer who killed his brother. Running alongside the film’s themes of vengeance is a feud among the movie’s multitude of antagonists concerning a railroad and water source. Extreme close-ups and juxtaposing cinematography are ever-present features in this flick, and all stay true to Leone’s form.

1 The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

     United Artists

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly concludes the highly-esteemed Dollar Trilogy, and 56-years on from its release, it remains a hallowed piece of cinema history. It would be considered extreme sacrilege not to include Leone’s flagship masterpiece as one of the greatest films of all time, so it rightly sits atop of this fiercely competitive list. Set against the backdrop of the American Civil War, it details the story of the good (Eastwood as the Man with No Name), the bad (Angel Eyes, played by Van Clee), and the ugly (Tuco, played by a great Eli Wallach).

The good and the ugly enter into a discomfited partnership, as they search for treasure, while concurrently attempting to outmaneuver the infamous outlaw Angel Eyes. A stellar soundtrack helps seal the deal, composed by Leone’s dear friend Morricone, including Ecstasy of Gold which, to this day, remains as distinctive as ever. Ultimately, this was to be the last time one of cinema’s greatest alliances worked together, as shortly after, the frequent actor-director duo of Eastwood and Leone fell out over a bitter financial dispute.

Despite The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’s legendary status, critics of 1966 were quick to dispel the movie’s credibility and discredit Leone’s ability behind the camera; as Variety Magazine states, “The third in the Clint Eastwood series of Italo westerns, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is exactly that – a curious amalgam of the visually striking, the dramatically feeble and the offensively sadistic.” Half a century later, the film has stood the test of time and proved the critics wrong as one of the great masterpieces of cinema.