By far the most ambitious, unflinchingly graphic and stylistically influential western ever mounted, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is an engrossing actioner shot through with a volatile mix of myth and realism. Clint Eastwood returns as the "Man With No Name," this time teaming with two gunslingers (Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef) to pursue a cache of $200,000and letting no one, not even warring ...

Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef, Aldo Giuffrè, Luigi Pistilli
Directed By: Sergio Leone

A Fistful of Dollars launched the spaghetti Western and catapulted Clint Eastwood to stardom. Based on Akira Kurosawa's 1961 samurai picture Yojimbo, it scored a resounding success (in Italy in 1964 and the U.S. in 1967), as did its sequels, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The advertising campaign promoted Eastwood's character--laconic, ...

Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Gian Maria Volontè, Marianne Koch, Wolfgang Lukschy, Sieghardt Rupp
Directed By: Monte Hellman, Sergio Leone

It's nonstop thrills when George Clooney (THE PERFECT STORM, THREE KINGS) and Quentin Tarantino (PULP FICTION) star as the Gecko brothers -- two dangerous outlaws on a wild crime spree! After kidnapping a father (Harvey Keitel -- U-571) and his two kids (including Juliette Lewis -- NATURAL BORN KILLERS), the Geckos head south to a seedy Mexican bar to hide out in safety. But when they face the ...

Manufacturer: Dimension Home Video
Starring: Harvey Keitel, George Clooney, Juliette Lewis, Quentin Tarantino, Ernest Liu
Directed By: Robert Rodriguez

The so-called spaghetti Western achieved its apotheosis in Sergio Leone's magnificently mythic (and utterly outlandish) Once upon a Time in the West. After a series of international hits starring Clint Eastwood (from A Fistful of Dollars to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly), Leone outdid himself with this spectacular, larger-than-life, horse-operatic epic about how the West was ...

Manufacturer: Paramount
Starring: Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards, Gabriele Ferzetti
Directed By: Sergio Leone

Director Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead) tries gamely to recapture the exotic mysteries of spaghetti Westerns in this stylish but empty film, which stars Sharon Stone as a stranger who comes to the town of Redemption in time for an annual shooting contest. Her real motivations for being there are the stuff that might have found their way into a film by Sergio Leone--in fact, much of this film is ...

Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
Starring: Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobin Bell
Directed By: Sam Raimi

Clint Eastwood's second film as a director (and his first Western) is a variation on the "man with no name" theme, starring Eastwood as the drifter known only as "the Stranger." He rides into the desert town of Lagos and is quickly attacked by three gunmen. Recovering with the aid of a local dwarf (a memorable role for Billy Curtis), the Stranger is hired by the intimidated townsfolk to fend off a ...

Manufacturer: Universal Studios
Starring: Walter Barnes, Verna Bloom, Paul Brinegar, Richard Bull, Billy Curtis

Here's how director Sam Peckinpah described his motivation behind The Wild Bunch at the time of the film's 1969 release: "I was trying to tell a simple story about bad men in changing times. The Wild Bunch is simply what happens when killers go to Mexico. The strange thing is you feel a great sense of loss when these killers reach the end of the line." All of these statements are ...

Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Starring: William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien, Warren Oates
Directed By: Sam Peckinpah

Legendary producer David O. Selznick dreamed of another magnum opus like his 1939 production of Gone with the Wind; he also purposed to make Jennifer Jones, his ladylove and eventually second Mrs. Selznick, a megastar. Accordingly, he micromanaged the making of Duel in the Sun (Lust in the Dust to some), an extravagant Technicolor epic about the collision of the old West ...

Manufacturer: Video Treasures
Starring: Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Gregory Peck, Lionel Barrymore, Herbert Marshall
Directed By: David O. Selznick, Josef von Sternberg, King Vidor, Otto Brower, Sidney Franklin

This curiosity from the mid-1970s is breathtaking in its dreadfulness. Directed by Hal Needham, this was an attempt at creating a Roadrunner cartoon with live actors--except that instead of a live actor they got Arnold Schwarzenegger, before Hollywood smoothed his rough edges (and his Austrian accent). He plays the invulnerable sheriff who rides blithely through life, unaware that the evil ...

Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
Starring: Kirk Douglas, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ann-Margret, Paul Lynde, Foster Brooks
Directed By: Hal Needham

Jeff Bridges and Sam Waterston star as an oddball team of modern-day cattle rustlers in this quirky, inventive portrait of the no longer wild West (Newsweek). If you're ready for a little not-so-innocent frontier fun, for 'some desire under the elms...some smoldering glances at the OK Corral, then head straight for Rancho Deluxe. Montana's Big Sky country is the setting for this whacked-out ...

Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Sam Waterston, Elizabeth Ashley, Clifton James, Slim Pickens
Directed By: Frank Perry