Eurowesterns Ratings From Worst To Best! (Spaghetti Westerns)
There were some 500-700 euro-westerns made in roughly the 15 years after 1962. The films listed here are the best products of an unusually fruitful popular film cycle.
As for my ratings, I consider C'era una volta il West to be the only truly great film that the genre produced. The others are rated in relation to this film on a Spaghetti Western scale =) It seems silly to rate all movies on the same scale. What point is there in comparing, say, Carl Dreyers "Joan of Arc" to "Arizona Colt?" These movies were meant to entertain and to provide surprising variations of the basic formula. Some were fairly decent films, but a great many more were very entertaining ones.
How do my ratings work? The order of the films doesn’t matter too much. However, if two films have the same SW Rating, then they are considered to be of similar quality.
I have also included Eurowestern clones like High Plains Drifter or Three Bullets For A Long Gun.
[This would be a "Best to Worst" list, but IMDB won't allow you sort that way in their defaults! Weird.]
I am building a wordpress blog that will have a more detailed version of this list as well (that can make finer distinction between movies than the IMDb ratings allow) as a Eurowestern podcast later this summer! Check it out at: [link]http://eurowesterns.wordpress.com/eurowestern-ratings-at-eurowesterns-wordpress-com/[/link]
As for my ratings, I consider C'era una volta il West to be the only truly great film that the genre produced. The others are rated in relation to this film on a Spaghetti Western scale =) It seems silly to rate all movies on the same scale. What point is there in comparing, say, Carl Dreyers "Joan of Arc" to "Arizona Colt?" These movies were meant to entertain and to provide surprising variations of the basic formula. Some were fairly decent films, but a great many more were very entertaining ones.
How do my ratings work? The order of the films doesn’t matter too much. However, if two films have the same SW Rating, then they are considered to be of similar quality.
I have also included Eurowestern clones like High Plains Drifter or Three Bullets For A Long Gun.
[This would be a "Best to Worst" list, but IMDB won't allow you sort that way in their defaults! Weird.]
I am building a wordpress blog that will have a more detailed version of this list as well (that can make finer distinction between movies than the IMDb ratings allow) as a Eurowestern podcast later this summer! Check it out at: [link]http://eurowesterns.wordpress.com/eurowestern-ratings-at-eurowesterns-wordpress-com/[/link]
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- DirectorSergio LeoneStarsHenry FondaCharles BronsonClaudia CardinaleA mysterious stranger with a harmonica joins forces with a notorious desperado to protect a beautiful widow from a ruthless assassin working for the railroad.SW Rating: 10
In a category of its own. A visually and aurally stunning film that transcends the genre. However, most fans prefer The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. - DirectorSergio LeoneStarsClint EastwoodEli WallachLee Van CleefA bounty hunting scam joins two men in an uneasy alliance against a third in a race to find a fortune in gold buried in a remote cemetery.SW Rating: 9.5.
- DirectorSergio CorbucciStarsJean-Louis TrintignantKlaus KinskiFrank WolffA mute gunfighter defends a young widow and a group of outlaws against a gang of bounty killers in the winter of 1898, and a grim, tense struggle unfolds.SW Rating: 9
Between 1966 and 1971, Sergio Corbucci made a series of incredible grotesque westerns. He peaked with this film.
One of Ennio Morricone's best scores. - DirectorSergio LeoneStarsClint EastwoodLee Van CleefGian Maria VolontèTwo bounty hunters with the same intentions team up to track down a gang of outlaws led by a psychotic Mexican bandit, who is plotting an audacious bank robbery.SW Rating: 9.
The last 20 minutes of this movie are perfect. - DirectorDamiano DamianiStarsGian Maria VolontèKlaus KinskiMartine BeswickA band of Mexican gunrunners employed by a revolutionary General accept an American mercenary into their gang, unaware of his true intentions.SW Rating: 9.
The best of the Marxist westerns. It is starting to receive well-deserved attention as time passes. - DirectorSergio SollimaStarsGian Maria VolontèTomas MilianWilliam BergerA history professor has a chance meeting with an infamous outlaw and eventually assumes leadership of his gang.SW Rating: 9.
I agree with Alex Cox that this movie is a failure, but the score is amazing, final 30 minutes are incredible, and the premise is creative. If Beauregard Bennet's transformation had been better realized, this would have been an incredible film. - DirectorTonino ValeriiStarsGiuliano GemmaWarren VandersMaría CuadraIn Dallas, an ex-Union soldier attempts to expose a conspiracy of Southerners who murdered his father, his friend and the President.SW Rating: 9.
Portraying a conspiratorial assassination of a President, this the best of the Guiliano Gemma - Tonino Valleri movies. Great score. Melodramatic and heavy handed, but it works. - DirectorDuccio TessariStarsGiuliano GemmaFernando SanchoLorella De LucaA returning Union Officer discovers that his home has been overrun by Mexican bandits, and infiltrates the gang to restore order and determine if his wife has been faithful to him.SW Rating: 9.
Over the top, operatic, and melodramatic. . . and one of the best Italian westerns. - DirectorEnzo G. CastellariStarsFranco NeroWilliam BergerOlga KarlatosAn ex-Union gunfighter attempts to protect his plague-ridden hometown from being overridden by his racist half-brothers and a Confederate tyrant.SW Rating: 9.
Almost a masterpiece, but marred by a terrible score (wish it would be re-scored without the vocals!) and silly final line. Visually a wonderful film. The script was thrown away early in the shoot and the story was largely improvised. - DirectorTonino ValeriiStarsTerence HillHenry FondaJean MartinA young, easy-going gunman worships and competes with a famed gunfighter, insisting that he must face down a gang of 150 outlaws before he can retire.SW Rating: 9.
This is usually talked about as a Sergio Leone movie and it has his mark. However, it is similar in theme and character to Tonino Valerri's other movies which are built around a young man's relationship with a mentor/father-figure (Price of Power, Day of Anger). It is more a Valerri movie than is usually recognized. - DirectorSergio CorbucciStarsFranco NeroJosé CanalejasJosé BódaloA coffin-dragging gunslinger and a prostitute become embroiled in a bitter feud between a Klan of Southern racists and a band of Mexican Revolutionaries.SW Rating: 8.
Corbucci's innovative, grotesque, gothic western. Most of Corbucci's best movies were recycled several times. Minnesota Clay, Django, The Great Silence, and The Specialist are all essentially the same story as are The Mercenary, Companeros, and What Am I Doing In The Middle Of The Revolution. At his best, each time he reworked one of his plots he improvise even more clever and outlandish variations on the theme. By The Specialist, however, it starts to seem less spontaneous and forced. Also, as Alex Cox points out, that is when the misogyny begins to overwhelm the movies. - DirectorGiulio QuestiStarsTomas MilianMarilù ToloPiero LulliVarious factions, including a half-breed bandit, a gang of homosexual cowboys, and a priest, feud over stolen gold in a surreal town.SW Rating: 8.
Justifiably famous (notorious?), this movie is a surreal translation of the director's experiences as a partisan fighter in the Italian countryside during WWII. It is intentionally ridiculous and absurd . . . and it works. - DirectorSergio CorbucciStarsJoseph CottenNorma BengellJulián MateosA Southern Colonel, his three sons and a card shark embark on an odyssey through the Southwest carrying a coffin full of stolen money with which the Colonel plans to revive the Confederacy.SW Rating: 8.
Producer Albert Band was an important player in the genre early on. He introduced the figure of the dictatorial Southern patriarch in The Tramplers. In this movie, Joseph Cotton is cast in the this role again. But with Corbucci directing, this movie becomes an exercise in gallows humor. - DirectorEnzo G. CastellariStarsAndrea GiordanaGilbert RolandHorst FrankBack from the Civil War, Johnny Hamilton learns that his father was murdered by Santana the bandit and that his mother Gertrude married his uncle Claude but Johnny is determined to find out the truth.SW Rating: 8.
Making a spaghetti western version of Hamlet may seem like a ludicrous idea, but Enzo Castellari pulls it off with incredible pop-western/psychedelic western style. - DirectorSergio LeoneStarsClint EastwoodGian Maria VolontèMarianne KochA wandering gunfighter plays two rival families against each other in a town torn apart by greed, pride, and revenge.SW Rating: 8.
An unauthorized remake of Yojimbo (which in turn was based on Dashiell Hammet's classic novel Red Harvest) his movie defined the Italian western. - DirectorSergio SollimaStarsLee Van CleefTomas MilianWalter BarnesAn unofficial lawman and would-be senator is tasked by a railroad baron with hunting down a knife-wielding Mexican peasant accused of raping and killing a young girl.SW Rating: 8.
To really appreciate this movie, you need to track down a copy of the restored Franco Cleef version. The English version shown on American cable channels has been butchered, removing important content and ruining the pacing. - DirectorGiulio PetroniStarsLee Van CleefJohn Phillip LawMario BregaA young gunfighter forms a tenuous alliance with an aging ex-outlaw to track down and eliminate the bandits who killed his family, till the surprising end.SW Rating: 8.
This movie is built around the relationship between an older mentor and a driven novice. It appears to be the inspiration for many subsequent movies built around similar characters. Ultimately, the idea probably originated with the Colonel Mortimer and Manco characters of For A Few Dollars More.
This film has all the prototypical style and elements of the Italian western. Track down a good, widescreen version on DVD because the common cut-rate DVDs don't do it justice. - DirectorJulio BuchsStarsPeter Lee LawrenceFausto TozziDyanik ZurakowskaBilly becomes innocently an outlaw while protecting his mother, but then turns into a trigger happy killer. When he falls in love he tries with the help of Pat Garrett, a fatherly friend, to change back. However, circumstances force Billy to become violent again and it is Garrett who is credited with the killing.SW Rating: 8.
I suppose I am one the few people that would rate this film so highly. In many ways, it looks like a pedestrian Spanish western. If you are looking for the style of Leone or Carmineo, you want find it here. Instead, it is one of the best b-westerns of the Spanish mold of the hero whose justified reactions to a corrupt world is corrupted and perpetuates that world. Violence and brutality spread like a virus. The closest American analog to these movies are the psychological westerns of the 1950s. I am tempted to speculate that these movie's unique character is attributable to the trauma of the Civil War. - DirectorGiulio PetroniStarsTomas MilianOrson WellesJohn SteinerA Mexican revolutionary contends with a tenacious police chief, a corrupt President he helped put in power, and an English doctor who wants him dead for personal reasons.SW Rating: 8.
Similar in style to A Bullet For The General, this is another effective Marxist western with the unusual pairing of Tomas Milian and Orson Welles. Welles and his biographers refused to acknowledge the film, which is strange because it is good genre movie. - DirectorCarlo LizzaniStarsLou CastelMark DamonPier Paolo PasoliniA preacher's adopted son comes upon a village that is under the thumb of a deranged ex-Confederate officer who, among other things, is stealing land from the locals with phony land grants.SW Rating: 8.
Clever western, as part of the 'political' subgenre it mixes populist Catholicism with Marxist revolutionism. Pasolini has a small role as a revolutionary priest. - DirectorTonino ValeriiStarsLee Van CleefGiuliano GemmaWalter RillaA scruffy garbage boy becomes the pupil of a famed gunfighter, and the stage for confrontation is set when the gunman overruns the boy's town through violence and corruption.SW Rating: 8.
One of the best mentor/father figure movies starring Guiliano Gemma. This time, the mentor is Lee Van Cleef. After having seen the Leone movies, when I first saw this as a teenager on a bad VHS tape I was really disappointed. I thought it was terrible. Now I really enjoy the campy style and story. Valerii and Gemma would essentially rework the same themes in Price of Power. - DirectorFerdinando BaldiStarsLeonard MannLuciana PaluzziPeter MartellMann, a gunman, learns his father was murdered by his mother and her lover. His childhood friend informs him, while Mann's sister is controlled by their murderous mom. Mann and his friend confront the mother to settle the score.SW Rating: 8.
The great score is ubiquitous in commercials, cartoons, and other television shows. This is Baldi's best film -- a classic, well-made, and surprising Gothic family western. - DirectorLucio FulciStarsFranco NeroGeorge HiltonLinda SiniA prospector and his drunkard half-brother must fight a rancher and his sadistic son after they seize control of his farm.SW Rating: 8
Excellent, gothic family western by Lucio Fulci. Surreal and dream-like, it was inspired by the theatre of violence of Artuad. The English dubbing is terrible and it would be nice to have a nice subtitled version (looking at you, WildEast). - DirectorRobert HosseinStarsMichèle MercierRobert HosseinGuido LollobrigidaA melancholic gunfighter is drawn into a vengeful and tragic kidnapping plot by his widowed ex-lover.SW Rating: 8
Dark, subtle (for a Eurowestern), and complex. Hossein's western is a classic. - DirectorEugenio MartínStarsRichard StapleyTomas MilianHalina ZalewskaAn escapee Mexican outlaw returns to his hometown, where he is sheltered from a tenacious bounty killer by the townspeople - who discover too late that he is a changed man.SW Rating: 8
The finest Spanish western. Tomas Milian's portrayal of a man's decent into homicidal insanity, carefully staged by Eugenio Martin, is great.