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The Seven Greatest Spaghetti Westerns (Great Silence is #7!)

posted 15 years ago by christomacin
18 replies | jump to latest

The Magnificent Seven (chronologically, not in order of preference):
(The ones with Ennio music and (except for The Great Silence) Leone-directed or produced):

1) A Fistful of Dollars 1964

2) For A Few Dollars More 1965

3) The Good, The Bad and the Ugly 1966

4) Once Upon A Time in the West 1968

5) The Great Silence 1968 (directed by Sergio Corbucci)

6) Duck, You Sucker! / aka A Fistful of Dynamite 1971

7) My Name Is Nobody 1973 (produced by Leone, he directed a few scenes)

+ 18 Honorable Mentions in no particular order, making it a "Top 25":
(a cut below Leone, but still good, most of which have at least one "Leone element" in them, mostly from the years 1965-1969, '66 and '68 being particularly banner years):

8) A Bullet for the General 1968 (Gian Maria Volonte)

9) Face to Face 1966 (Gian Maria Volonte and Ennio music)

10) The Big Gundown 1966 (Lee Van Cleef and Ennio music)

11) Death Rides A Horse 1968 (Lee Van Cleef and Ennio music)

12) Day of Anger 1967 (Lee van Cleef)

13) Sabata 1969 (Lee van Cleef)

14) The Grand Duel 1972 (Lee van Cleef)

15) The Mercenary 1968 (Ennio music)

16) A Pistol for Ringo 1965 (Ennio music)

17) The Return of Ringo 1965 (Ennio music)

18) Bandidos 1967 (directed by Massimo Dallamano, Leone's cinematographer on Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More)

19) Ace High 1968 (Eli Wallach)

Under-appreciated (in the US, at least) Corbucci efforts

20) Navajo Joe 1966 (Ennio music)

21) Hellbenders 1967 (Ennio music)

22) Companeros 1970 (Ennio music)

23) Django 1966

Miscellaneous
(very good spaghettis with almost no "Leone elements")

24) A Minute to Pray, A Second To Die 1968

25) The Ruthless Four 1968

+ 25 Other Spaghettis
(not necessarily "good movies", but "of interest" due to "Leone elements", i.e. the participation of James Coburn, Eli Wallach, Charles Bronson, and Ennio Morricone, etc)

A Genius, Two Partners, and a Dupe 1975 (Ennio music, plus Leone may have directed a scene or two)

The Guns of San Sebastian 1968 (Charles Bronson and Ennio music)

Red Sun 1972 (Charles Bronson)

Chino 1973 (Charles Bronson)

Beyond the Law 1968 (Lee Van Cleef)

The Return of Sabata 1971 (Lee Van Cleef)

Long Live Your Death / aka Don't Turn the Other Cheek 1971 (Eli Wallach)

A Reason to Live, A Reason To Die 1972 (James Coburn)

Tepepa 1968 (Ennio music)

Run, Man Run 1968 (Ennio music)

Five Man Army 1969 (Ennio music)

Sonny and Jed 1971 (Ennio music)

What Am I Doing in the Middle of a Revolution? 1972 (Ennio music)

Other vaguely interesting Spaghetti's mainly due to the cast involved:

Adios, Sabata 1970 (Yul Brynner)

A Man Called Sledge 1970 (James Garner)

Deaf Smith and Johnny Ears 1973 (Anthony Quinn & Franco Nero)

Kill Them All and Come Back Alone 1968 (Chuck Connors)

A Bullet for Sandoval 1969 (Ernest Borgnine)

A few more films of the "other Sergio", Sergio Corbucci
(in addition to What Am I Doing in the Middle of a Revolution? and Sonny and Jed (already mentioned above), plus The White, The Yellow, and the Black and Massacre at Grande Canyon 1963 (not listed), which are of interest for mainly historical reasons.)

Minnesota Clay 1964

Ringo and His Golden Piston / aka Johnny Oro 1965

The Specialist 1968

The "Comedy Spaghettis" with the Terence Hill/Bud Spencer, known as the "Trinity" films
(Whether you find these Hill/Spencer westerns funny or not is a matter of taste. The Italians love them, I personally prefer the first three more serious Westerns they made in the 60's to the Trinity films. I have already mentioned Ace High which also stars Eli Wallach, above. Actually, it was part of a non-comedy trilogy with the Hill/Spencer team. Boot Hill and God Forgives, I Don't are the other two.)

God Forgives, I Don't 1968

Boot Hill 1969

They Call Me Trinity 1971

Trinity is Still My Name 1971

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*Well that's it for the "top 50". Actually, I'm not so sure about 26-50, but 1-25 are must see and rock-solid.

If you can't get enough of this type of movie, rather than wasting your time with the mostly substandard 400 to 500 hundred remaining Eurowesterns (the vast majority of which stink to high heaven), I would recommend trying the Clint Eastwood films Hang 'Em High (1968), Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970), Joe Kidd (1972), High Plains Drifter (1973), Outlaw Jose Wales (1976), Pale Rider (1985) and Unforgiven (1992). Obviously, they aren't spaghetti westerns, but the Leone kinship is obvious. Think of them as the Leone/Eastwood films they never got around to making together.

Also, the films of Sam Peckinpah, especially, The Wild Bunch (1969), The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970) and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1972), which were also key films in the "deconstruction" of the Western. Oh, McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971) by Robert Altman is another key film.

P.S. By all means, avoid Spanish "Paella" Westerns, which are even worse than the very worst Italian made ones. Especially A Town Called Hell (1971) by Eugenio Martin, it is absolutely lousy despite the stellar cast.

P.P.S. Contrary to what some people may try to tell you, there are no Late Spaghetti Classics (after 1973). No, Keoma, Four of the Apocalypse and China 9, Liberty 37 are not lost classics, they are pretentious, preposterous piles of rubbish, deservedly (and mercifully) forgotten. The two post '73 spaghettis I did mention were only due to the involvement of Leone and Corbucci, I wasn't endorsing those films necessarily.

[–] ilBuono 14 years ago

Hey,

Thanks for that list, an interesting read (although I would put Once upon a time in the west and TGTB&TU on #1). Looks like I have some catching up to do, too bad they don't come on tv very often.
I remember reading once about 'camembert' westerns as well (yeah I know it sounds ridiculous :) ). Do French westerns exist (from that period)?

[–] JohnWelles 14 years ago

I was wondering OP, if you ever had an acount on the forum on the Spaghetti Western Database?

[–] JohnWelles 14 years ago

OP, you only seem to like only Leone, and other Spaghetti Western directors who imitated him. Surely you would prefere more original people who didn't slavishly copy him? Anyhow, you dissmiss all other Spaghetti Westerns that you haven't listed as being unwatchable. This is not always the case. You should let other people judge how many are good before you write off a entire sub-genre.

[–] christomacin 14 years ago

Of course, the remaining 500 spaghetti's or so weren't all unwatchable, but a considerable number of them were. The re-release of a wider range of Italian westerns has made them more "watchable", at least on an aesthetic level. The set design and cinematography were generally good considering the low-budgets, and this is especially evident with a remastered print on DVD. The problem for me was that a lot of spaghettis were original, but that didn't always make them good westerns in comparison with their American cousins, let alone Leone's reboots. I think the reason was because few Italian directors had as strong a feel for the American western genre as Leone. Leone clearly set the standard, and even when other directors (like Corbucci, not a slavish imitator of Leone by the way) did something different, they often accessed much of the same talent pool found in Leone's films. What Leone clones lacked in originality they often gained in terms of production values and by more fully exploring the implications of Leone's westerns on the genre (he only made 5 of himself, remember, unlike the prolific John Ford).

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] 14 years ago

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[–] christomacin 14 years ago

That was with Burt Lancaster, right? I didn't know it was a Euro Western. Spanish, perhaps?

[–] stephen-morton 14 years ago

Funny that you say The Great Silence is #7 in the title, but then put it at #4 in your post.

Other than that, and the fact that I disagree with the order of your top ten, this was a very informative and useful post for anyone looking to watch more Spaghetti Westerns but not sure where to start. Thank you.

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] christomacin 13 years ago

Funny that you say The Great Silence is #7 in the title, but then put it at #4 in your post.

I had the "magnificent seven" ranked in chronological order. I hadn't intended the numbering to reflect the films' ranking , just that they were the top 7 by release date...but yeah, I could see how that would be a bit confusing.

[–] Pharaoh-in-de-Nile 14 years ago

No offence but you seem to just like Spaghetti Westerns if they remind you of Sergio Leone (have "Leone elements" or have the same composer or cast members as Leone's films) rather than liking them based on their own merits. They don't have to be Leone film clones to be good. You do have some good choices but to describe 'Keoma' as a "pretentious, preposterous pile of rubbish" and "not a Spaghetti Western" is laughable and Keoma is very well regarded by most Spaghetti Western fans and rightfully so. Did it not have enough 'Leone elements' or Ennio Morricone* music to be worthy of your regard?

My personal list is something like this:

01. Keoma
02. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
03. The Great Silence
04. A Bullet For The General
05. The Big Gundown
06. Django
07. Once Upon A Time In The West
08. For A Few Dollars More
09. Face To Face
10. The Forgotten Pistolero
11. Duck You Sucker
12. A Fistful of Dollars
13. Tepepa
14. Day of Anger
15. They Call Him Cemetery
16. Ace High
17. The Mercenary
18. Today It's Me...Tomorrow You!
19. Blindman
20. Death Rides A Horse
21. Texas, Adios
22. Django Kill...If You Live, Shoot!
23. Guns for San Sebastian
24.The Big Showdown
25. Red Sun

*He is my favourite composer and very influential but I don't dislike films with music by for example Bacalov (who wrote the music for 'A Bullet For The General' (or 'Quien Sabe?') by the way not Morricone, though he was music editor).

"Nothings gonna change my world!"

[–] ContinentalOp 13 years ago

1.The Forgotten Pistolero
2. Face To Face
3. The Great Silence
4. The Big Gundown

5. Day of Anger
6. A Bullet For The General
7. Texas Adios
8. Duck You Sucker

9. Once Upon A Time In The West
10. For A Few Dollars More
11. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
12. Django

13. Death Rides A Horse
14. Keoma
15. Tepepa, Viva La Revolution
16. A Fistful of Dollars

17. Four of The Apocalypse
18. Blindman
19. The Mercenary
20. Five Man Army

21. The Grand Duel
22. The Hellbenders
23. A Pistol for Ringo
24. A Man Called Sledge

25. Guns For San Sebastian
26. Man of The East
27. Today It's Me...Tomorrow You!
28. Django Kill, if You Live, Shoot!

29. Navajo Joe
30. If you Meet Sartana, Pray for Death
31. Ace High
32. They Call Me Trinity

33. China 9, Liberty
34. Django, Prepare a Coffin
35. Run, Man, Run
36. The Hills Run Red

37. My Name is Nobody
38. Red Sun
39. They Call Him Cemetery
40. God Forgives, I Don't!

41. Villa Rides!
42. Any Gun Can Play
43. Stranger In Japan/Silent Stranger
44. Sabata

45. Trinity Is Still My Name
46. Johnny Yuma
47. Gentleman Killer
48. The Return of Sabata

49. Boots Hill
50. A Town Called Hell
51. 100 Rifles
52. Kill Them All and Come Back Alone

53. Kid Venageance
54. Machine Gun Killers
56. There's A Noose Waiting Trinity
57. Django's Cut-Price Corpses

60. Twice A Judas
61. Wanted
62. Wanted, Johnny Texas
63. Renegade Gun

64. Ride and Kill
65. One Damned Day At Dawn
66. Django and Sartana are Coming
67. Beyond The Law

68. God's Gun
69. Pancho Villa
70. Badman's River
71. Captain Apache

[–] ContinentalOp 8 years ago

He is my favourite composer and very influential but I don't dislike films with music by for example Bacalov (who wrote the music for 'A Bullet For The General' (or 'Quien Sabe?') by the way not Morricone, though he was music editor).

People act as if Bacalov is some nobody at times, ignoring the fact that he rightly won an Oscar for his score for 'Il Postino'. Morricone was great and should have won an Oscar, but Bacalov has proved his worse countless times also.

Formerly KingAngantyr

[–] Pharaoh-in-de-Nile 13 years ago

"I have already mentioned Ace High which also stars Eli Wallach, above. Actually, it was part of a non-comedy trilogy with the Hill/Spencer team. Boot Hill and God Forgives, I Don't are the other two.)"

Did you watch the same films as I did? Though 'God Forgives... I Don't' may not be an out-and-out comedy 'Ace High' was definitely a comedy/drama (with slightly more comedy than drama) and 'Boot Hill' other than a fairly serious theme involving Woody Strode's character is an out-and-out comedy farce. Famously so. It takes place mostly in a circus after all...

"P.P.S. Contrary to what some people may try to tell you, there are no Late Spaghetti Classics (after 1973). No, Keoma, Four of the Apocalypse and China 9, Liberty 37 are not lost classics, they are pretentious, preposterous piles of rubbish, deservedly (and mercifully) forgotten. The two post '73 spaghettis I did mention were only due to the involvement of Leone and Corbucci, I wasn't endorsing those films necessarily."

And why should they believe you rather than the majority of the genre's fans (rather than just Leone fanboys.. no offence to the director) who know that the last films are either classics like 'Keoma' (which is on the Spaghetti Western Database's top 20 list) or at least interesting latter day efforts like 'Four of The Apocalypse' and 'China 9, Liberty 37'.

I have noticed you have now corrected the part about the music in 'A Bullet For The General' which is good as Bacalov should get the credit he is due.

"Nothings gonna change my world!"

[–] grybop 10 years ago

Not exactly spaghetti, because it's spanish, but a definite Euro-western, and certainly among my top 5 westerns of all time is Condenados a VIvir AKA Cut-Throats Nine - a real bloodfest of a movie!

[–] alaninho 8 years ago

Great list, thanks for this