Before 1963, the dusty, dry, arid terrain of the Spaghetti Western subgenre was relatively unexplored territory among those outside the Italian, German, and Spanish borders. Before then, the form these European cowboy flicks took was virtually unrecognizable. Westerns of the Spaghetti kind were predominantly action comedy movies before the godfather of the genre, Sergio Leone, and his namesake Sergio Corbucci (known as "the Other Sergio"), showcased their own take on the gunslingers, outlaws, drifters, and bandits of the American West and Mexico.
Once those two filmmakers 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 unhinged violence and profanity, the filming and editing style, and the unconventional, unsettling musical scores would spawn a renewed interest in the Western genre in America. Some of the best Westerns ever made can be picked from the European subgenre, and here is a throwback on the most memorable titles.
Updated on July 31st, 2023 by Mona Bassil: This article has been updated with additional content to keep the discussion fresh and relevant with even more information and new entries.
16 West and Soda (1965)
Considered the Walt Disney of Italy, Bruno Bozzetto created his first feature-length animated film in 1965. West and Soda was considered 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 as a comedy and a love letter to the genre and its traditions.
In 2015, Italian cartoon animator Bozzetto opened up to Avvenire about the subgenre's breakthrough, claiming 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 are the ones who cemented the international popularity of these movies.
15 Death Rides a Horse (1967)
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.
14 The Big Gundown (1966)
Outside of Leone and Corbucci, the third namesake, Sergio Sollima, made a place for himself in the genre. After directing Spaghetti spy films, Sollima moved to Westerns and released The Big Gundown.
It is the first part of the director’s Zapata Westerns (the sub-subgenre 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, which makes The Big Gundown a truly rousing movie.
13 Massacre Time (1966)
Lucio Fulci is the cinematic master of giallos and other cult horror films. He directed Massacre Time, which is also known as The Colt Sang Death and it was... Massacre Time and The Brute and the Beast. This underrated and extremely violent Western stars Franco Nero as Tom Corbett, a gold prospector who is called back to his hometown. He joined his alcoholic half-brother Jeff (George Hilton) to take on a cruel criminal (Giuseppe Addobbati) and his sadistic whip-wielding son (Nino Castelnuovo) for control of the town.
Per The Spaghetti Western Database, “Today, the violence of Massacre Time is no longer an issue, but at the time of its release, it certainly was. The Italian censors ordered Fulci to make cuts in both the opening sequence (a man devoured by dogs) and the bullwhip sequence, and to remove a close-up of the two murdered Carradine girls.”
12 A Pistol for Ringo (1965)
Written and directed by Duccio Tessari, A Pistol for Ringo stars Giuliano Gemma as the skilled gunfighter Angel Face/Ringo, George Martin as Sheriff Ben, Fernando Sancho as the Mexican bandit Sancho, Antonio Casas as the land baron Major Clyde, and Hally Hammond as Miss Ruby, the latter’s daughter.
When a bank robbery goes wrong, the perpetrators storm the Clyde ranch and take everyone hostage. The desperate sheriff, who happens to be engaged to Miss Ruby, has no choice but to enlist Ringo to save the day.
11 Compañeros (1970)
Directed by Corbucci, scored by Ennio Morricone, and starring Franco Nero, Tomas Milian, Jack Palance, and Fernando Rey, Compañeros is set during the Mexican Revolution and centers on El Vasco (Milian), a peasant who kills a ruthless colonel. He joins the so-called revolutionary gang leader General Mongo Álvarez (José Bódalo), who is more interested in fame and fortune than the cause.
Yodlaf Peterson (Nero), an elegant Swedish mercenary eager to make a gun business deal with Álvarez is tracked by the one-armed gunrunner John (Palance), his former partner whom he had double-crossed and left for dead. The film featured incredible cinematography and a stunning bullet-filled finale that will please most Western fans.
10 Adiós, Sabata (1970)
Scored by Bruno Nicolai, Morricone’s longtime right hand, helmed by Gianfranco Parolini, and set in Mexico under the rule of Emperor Maximilian, Adiós, Sabata stars Yul Brynner as Sabata/Indio Black, a mysterious gunslinger helping Mexican revolutionaries steal a wagon of gold.
Dean Reed starred as the charming artist Ballantine; Gérard Herter as the greedy, shrewd, and elegant Austrian Colonel Skimmel; and Sal Borgese as the mute Septiembre, whose weapon of choice is a pair of small cannonballs he throws at his opponents with his feet.
9 Day of Anger (1967)
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. Day of Anger starred Spaghetti Western icon, Lee Van Cleef.
The iconic actor was best known as the scene-stealing co-star of For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. 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.
8 Django (1966)
Corbucci was relatively unknown worldwide prior to the release of Django, which was ultimately his first real commercial success. Starring Frances Nero as the titular lead, the film documents the mysterious gunslinger'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 achieved cult status.
7 The Great Silence (1968)
Corbucci directed some of the most violent Spaghetti Westerns. The dark, gruesome, and snow-drenched film The Great Silence is one of his most acclaimed creations. The film is set in Utah before the Great Blizzard of 1899, though it was 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.
6 My Name Is Nobody (1973)
Directed by Tonino Valerii and based on a plot suggested by Sergio Leone, My Name Is Nobody stars Terence Hill as an eager but talented shooter who puts the famed and aging gunslinger Jack Beauregard (Henry Fonda) on a pedestal and cleverly leads him to a fitting showdown with the Wild Bunch, a feared posse of 150 ruff and gruff criminals.
The Ennio Morricone theme that accompanies all appearances of the latter, which samples Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries, gives this movie a unique and thrilling punch. My Name Is Nobody is considered a fitting tribute and an unofficial farewell to the Spaghetti Western subgenre.
5 A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
A Fistful of Dollars was Leone’s breakout Western, and it just so happens it was the first installment of the acclaimed Dollars Trilogy. It stars Clint Eastwood as the Man with No Name who 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 relatively moral principles. Through A Fistful of Dollars, Leone brought a sense of rejuvenation to a genre that was ailing and losing its direction and relevance. He subsequently began the restoration of the genre and re-established its unmistakable identity.
4 They Call Me Trinity (1970)
The highly entertaining dynamic of Italian actors Terence Hill and Bud Spencer, whose Americanized artist names were inspired by Spencer Tracy and the beer brand, respectively, was showcased in various Spaghetti Westerns and modern-day cop action comedies.
In They Call Me Trinity, written and directed by Enzo Barboni, they play two half-brothers: Trinity, “The Right Hand of the Devil,” and Bambino, “His Left Hand,” who find themselves protecting a Mormon settlement from Mexican outlaws and a greedy and ruthless landlord, Major Harriman (Farley Granger).
3 For a Few Dollars More (1965)
Following the monumental success 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 (Eastwood again), teams up with bounty hunter Colonel Mortimer (Van Cleef) to pursue a wanted criminal, El Indio (Gian Maria Volonte). While the first is motivated by money, the second is looking to avenge the abuse and suicide of his sister, El Indio's past victim.
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 (1968)
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 the cold-blooded criminal who killed his brother.
Running alongside the film's themes of vengeance is a feud 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 (1966)
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly concluded the highly-esteemed Dollar Trilogy, and decades after its release, it remains a revered piece of cinema history. 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, portrayed 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 and long-time collaborator Morricone. Despite The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly's legendary status, the critics at the time of release were quick to dispel the movie's credibility and discredit Leone's ability behind the camera. Yet, the film has stood the test of time and proved the critics wrong as one of the great masterpieces of cinema.