The Colossus of Rhodes (1961)

The Colossus of Rhodes (1961)

[6] Rory Calhoun, or proto-George Clooney as I like to call him, stars in this kinda silly but kinda fun sword-and-sandals flick that earned Sergio Leone (A Fistful of Dollars, Once Upon a Time in America) his first major directing…
For a Few Dollars More (1965)

For a Few Dollars More (1965)

[7] I prefer the more crude and raw qualities of the first film over this sequel, which may be a little more polished but is also a bit less mysterious. Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name is upstaged in the…
A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

[8]

I never particularly liked Westerns until I saw this film, my first ‘Spaghetti Western.’ Most people credit Sergio Leone for inventing the genre. If it weren’t for his so-called Man With No Name trilogy (three films starring Clint Eastwood, of which A Fistful of Dollars is the first) the sub-genre may have never taken flight. What Leone did was take the stagey, polished, over-produced Hollywood Western, drag it through the mud, tear it up around the edges, and make it more violent, more crude, more rock and roll.

Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

[9] "As boys, they said they would die for each other. As men, they did." Once Upon a Time in America is an epic, gorgeous, emotionally moving gangster flick from spaghetti western maestro Sergio Leone (The Good the Bad and…