1)Once Upon A Time In The West 10/10
2)Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo 10/10
3)Per Un Pugno Di Dollari 9/10
4)Per Qualche Dollaro In Piu 9/10
5)Giu La Testa 8/10
6)Vamos a Matar Companeros 8/10
7)Django 8/10
The Magnificent Seven:
(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) The Great Silence 1968 (directed by Sergio Corbucci)
5) Once Upon A Time in the West 1968
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 and Ennio music)
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)
The 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.
"6) My Name Is Nobody (as near a Leone imitation as you can get)"
'My Name Is Nobody' is actually produced by Sergio Leone, and he directs some sequences.
"Nothings gonna change my world!"
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...with the emphasis on odd
some really weird and off-the-wall spaghettis which you might find interesting, this information has been compiled from the Spaghetti Western Database
spaghetti-western.net/index.php/Spaghetti_Western_Oddities
Seven Guns for the MacGregors (1966) The story about a Scottish family way out West, Seven Guns is one of oddest and most confusing spaghetti westerns in history. While nearly as corny as many of those seventies parodies, it's at the same time more graphically violent than most of the early spaghettis. Featuring a bizarre bagpipe drone march theme by Ennio Morricone. This one is just plain odd.
Up the MacGregors! (1967) Everyone's favorite transplanted Scottish clan is back. This time, the evil Maldonado steals the MacGregor family gold, and it's up to the seven brothers to reclaim it. More spaghetti weirdness mixing dubious comedy with D-Day scale carnage, and that weird Morricone music again.
Requiescant (1967) Lou Castel plays a young boy adopted by a devoutly religious family following the massacre of all his village. He leaves his family to rescue his adopted sister from the clutches of racist confederate Mark Damon. During the course of this his learns to gunfight and gets revenge for the massacre. After each killing he says a requiem prayer, hence the title. Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini has a part as a Don Juan, a revolution-spouting priest. This is a queer one (no pun intended).
Django Kill! If You Live, Shoot! (1967) Greed splits a gang of gold thieves, miraculously surviving the ensuing massacre "The Stranger" (Tomas Milian) sets out after his ex comrades for vengeance. A trail which leads him to a town "The Unhappy Place" where he discovers their sadistically murdered bodies. "The Stranger" finds himself caught between the towns two rival factions battling for the stolen gold. The townspeople led by a storekeeper called "Hagerman" who keeps his wife imprisoned and "The Muchachos" a gang of black uniformed homosexual Mexican bandits mounted on pure white horses, led by their adoring leader "Mr Sorrow". Err...all righty then.
White Commanche (1967) Two Shatners, one good, one bad. One is a misunderstood white boy named Jonny Moon, the other, named Notah Moon, is a pyschotic, peyote-chomping lookalike who fancies himself a Commanche chief. And, oh the merry mix ups that ensue! They are brothers separated at birth, or maybe it was a freak transporter room accident...oh, sorry, that's Star Trek. Needless to say, the shennanigans of Jonny's twin make his life a bit difficult. Can a movie likes this possible be good...no it can't. In fact, it's bloody awful. The jazzy and anachronisitc score by Frenchman Jean Ledrut seals this films doom.
Today It's Me... Tomorrow It's You (1968) A typical revenge western, in the Leone tradition, illustrating the central conflict by means of a flashback, while the avenger Bill Kiowa (Brett Halsey) assembles a small army of specialists (in the tradition of The Magnificent Seven and The Dirty Dozen) before marching up against his arch enemy Elfego (veteran actor Tatsuya Nakadai from Kurosawa's Ran) who has surrounded himself with an army of Comancheros. Why a machete-weilding (and clearly Japanese) man is leading a pack of Commancheros is really beyond me.
The Price of Power (1968) Director Tonino Valerii recreates a fistful of JFK conspiracy theories in Western settings with this bizarre look at the assassination of President James Garfield in 1890 Dallas. Granted, the assassination really occurred in Washington in 1881. Giuliano Gemma, Fernando Rey, and Van Johnson star. This movie is a fistful of loopiness, while clearly straining to make a Big Statement. Oliver Stone meets Sergio Leone.
Cemetary Without Crosses (1969) Following a dispute over cattle, Ben Caine is ruthlessly pursued by the Rogers family. Despite his wife Maria's pleading, the Rogers family hangs Ben Caine, forcing Maria to watch. Consumed with revenge, Maria enlists the help of gunslinger Manuel (Robert Hossein). Manual, presumably preoccupied with the past, wears a single black glove and lives alone in a ghost town. Manuel agrees to Maria's plan with reluctance, in part because of his attraction to her, but things don't turn out quite as planned. Leave it to the French. This strange, heavily French-influenced spaghetti western directed by Robert Hossein has a strong film noir feel. This movie is ART you see. No, I don't see. Mon dieu!
Matalo (1970) Matalo is without a doubt the strangest and weirdest of any western. A lot of that is due to the unique camera work, creepy sound effects, and psychedelic acid-rock soundtrack. Our hero, named Ray, is introduced 30 minutes into the movie and also has very little dialogue. In fact, there is very little dialogue throughout the film. Ray runs afoul of a gang of cut-throats and spends most of the move being beaten, torrmented, stabbed, dehydrated, and whipped with chains. He comes back and defeats his enemies in a climactic duel with the gang armed only with a boomerbang!
A Town Called Hell (1971) This Spanish/British western has a great cast: Telly Savalas, Robert Shaw, Stella Stevens, Fernando Rey, and Martin Landau. But what the hell is it about? Our "story" begins, with a merciless massacre (led by Robert Shaw) of an entire town by vile looking bandits. The story continues with eerie images of how a young beauty (Stella Stevens) lying in a hearse is driven into the same town by a deaf-mute gunslinger… The coffin she brought with her is reserved for the person who killed her husband, but she still has to find out who that is. This movie, is violent, sadistic, sloppy, and very confusing.
Blindman (1971) A gunslinger named Blindman is hired to transfer 50 European women to miners in Texas. Hey, wait a minute, is that blind as in B-L-I-N-D? Yup, a gunslinger who is in fact completely blind. Talk about low value for money! En route, however, the women are captured by Mexican bandit Domingo. Hmmm, maybe his being BLIND had something to do with that? Anyway, Domingo plans to sell the women to the Army only to cheat them and their colonel. Domingo's brother Candy (played by former Beatle Ringo Starr) is after a woman he loves, but she is being protected by Blindman, who embarks on a zero-tolerance killing spree to get his women back. This movie is features is hokey, sexist, misogynistic, and, oh, did I mention Ringo can't act?
The Black, The White, and the Yellow (1975) This "comedy" western has all the classic elements a Japanese samurai, a sacred pony named Shin-Me, an outlaw known as "the Swiss" (not the Frenchman, thank goodness) and a Sheriiff who dresses in all black, named, uh, "Black Jack" Carson. How can it go right? Sheriff Carson is robbed of a payroll by "the Swiss". As fate would have it, the Swiss is involved in the attack on a special train transporting a Japanese Samurai and the Sacred Pony called Shin-Me. Apaches, who demand an enormous sum, a million dollars in gold, for its ransom, steal the latter. The man who is to bring this sum is Sheriff Carson. He is assisted, by the servant of the Samurai, named Sakura by name. Meanwhile the Swiss, attracted by that million, which is shut up in an iron strongbox, seizes every opportunity to try to get possession of it. There follows a series of adventures or rather misadventures, complicated also by a strange pseudo-military band commanded by a bloodthirsty madman called Paleface, who wants at all costs to kill the sheriff, Sakura and the Swiss, to obtain possession of the ransom money. (Trust me, It plays even worse than it reads....)
Get Mean (1976) Bizarre spaghetti western, the "Stranger" must cope with a wide assortment of strange villains. Through the course of the story he fights with Vikings who suddenly appear in a western ghost town; a strange Elizabethan family costumed in period clothing who live in a desert castle; and medieval knights whom he battles using machine guns, TNT, and his gun. A bizarre silver ball hangs over the melees, watching the strange goings on!
AND FINALLY!
Keoma (1976) This is one of the very last spaghetti westerns ever made...gee, I wonder why? It is highly praised in some circles, but frankly, I haven't a clue why. It is odd, for sure. Franco Nero portrays Keoma the half breed. Keoma, shirtless and sporting long hair and a bandana, comes back to his old home town to visit his dad and less than friendly half-brothers. Keoma looks like a stoner from Woodstock, and why he has an Italian accent when raised by Anglo-Saxons is never explained. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Keoma's brothers are in the employ of an evil landowner who has taken over the town. Anyway, it's odd because some genius decided to have a running folk-song commentary as the soundtrack to the film, as in Bob Dylan's work in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. The problem is the songs, suck, I mean REALLY suck. Worse than bad, the songs on the soundtrack are unlistenable, not to mention unnecssary. There is a woman singer who sounds like a shreiking banshee. That's not the worst part, though, since Franco Nero himself favors us with his own vocal stylings. And boy can he really sing...yeah, right, just like Ringo Starr can act. His voice makes Bob Dylan (at his very worst) sound like Caruso. The sound of Nero's gravelly, baritone and heavlily accented Italian voice sounds like a badger being garroted slowly by a blood-thirsty Saracen.
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