Following his hit Spaghetti Westerns A Fistful of Dollars and A Few Dollars More, Italian director Sergio Leone created what is perhaps the most iconic Western of all time in 1968’s The Good, The Bad & The Ugly.
A grand spectacle of violence, desert heat and vivid colour, Leone’s masterpiece is deservedly famous for Ennio Morricone’s touchstone score, which is one of the most instantly recognisable pieces of film music ever written. But it’s sheer scale, incredible widescreen imagery, and trio of magnetic lead performances complete what is one of the genre’s greatest epics.
Clint Eastwood returns as another taciturn Man With No Name figure, who discovers the whereabouts of buried treasure at a Confederate gravesite, and must navigate the violence of Civil War-era America and the competing interests of Tuco (Eli Wallach) and Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef), who are also seeking the treasure.
Each knowing part of the secret that will yield one of them a $200,000 bounty, this epic journey of shifting alliances and wild violence leads to one of the most notorious standoffs in film history, and is one of the true greats of the big screen.