5 Best Sergio Leone Western Movies, Ranked

The spaghetti Western is the kind of genre you could not make up if it didn't already exist. These highly stylized and cynical Italian offshoots of traditional Western movies immediately stood out from their American cousins when they emerged in the early 1960s, and the greatest masters of the genre went on to have exciting and successful careers.

Though many directors have worked on spaghetti Westerns, the average moviegoer can readily associate it with a single filmmaker: Sergio Leone. Far overshadowing his spaghetti Western peers like Sergio Corbucci and Sergio Sollima, Leone left a legacy of Western movies that very few others can challenge. 

Leone wasn't exclusively a Western man. After a lengthy stint in assistant and second unit director positions, his own directorial debut was the swords-and-sandals adventure "The Colossus of Rhodes," and he ended his career with the 1984 gangster epic "Once Upon a time in America." However, it will probably surprise no one that his finest films are all spaghetti Westerns, including one of the greatest movie trilogies ever made. In honor of the legendary filmmaker, let's rank all five of Sergio Leone's spaghetti Western movies, sorted by their Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer scores.

1971's "Duck, You Sucker!" is the only film here that doesn't feature either Clint Eastwood's The Man With No Name or an expy of the character. Also known as "A Fistful of Dynamite" or "Once Upon a Time ... the Revolution," it belongs in the sub-subgenre of Zapata Westerns – spaghetti Westerns that take place during the 1910 Mexican Revolution.

"Duck, You Sucker!" is a deeply political affair that stars Rod Steiger as Mexican bandit Juan Miranda. After an encounter with Irish revolutionary and bomb man John Mallory (James Coburn), Juan finds himself in the middle of the Mexican Revolution, and after a few plot twists, they become major heroes among the revolutionaries. In true Leone style, though, there are precious few clear-cut heroes here. The early moments paint Juan as a brutal and morally questionable man. John Mallory isn't without his complex qualities, either. In fact, the revolution itself is slowly stripped of all glamour, revealing its true face as a sequence of incredible bloodshed.

Leone pulls few punches here, and his signature style gets the message delivered with maximum visual appeal. "Duck, You Sucker!" might only be number five on this list, but don't let that make you think that it's a bad movie. With its 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer, it's the kind of film many directors would give everything to make — and it's telling of Leone's qualities that there are four better movies in his back catalog.

1965's "For a Few Dollars More" is the second film in Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood's famed Dollars trilogy, and its 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer gives you an idea of how beloved this movie series is. Eastwood, of course, stars as the Man with No Name, who in this movie goes by Manco. His bounty hunter colleague is the equally cool Colonel Douglas Mortimer (Lee Van Cleef), who harbors hidden but extremely personal motives to capture the man they're both after: El Indio (Gian Maria Volonté). This is a bandit who's as brutal as they come — but who remains tormented by one of his most heinous crimes.

It's a Leone spaghetti Western, so you may have an idea of what's coming. Manco and the Colonel make their way to the target, slowly but steadily. However, what makes this particular movie are the little twists of precisely why everyone's doing what they're doing, and how they go about it. 

"For a Few Dollars More" is as stylish and atmospheric as you would expect from a Sergio Leone spaghetti Western, and both Eastwood and Van Cleef ooze charisma. Add in some nice touches like an entertaining supporting antagonist turn by the German great Klaus Kinski, and "For a Few Dollars More" is far more than just a must-watch for Leone completionists. 

The 1968 Sergio Leone movie "Once Upon a Time in the West" features Charles Bronson as Harmonica, a character who's basically a remix of Clint Eastwood's Dollars Trilogy protagonist after Eastwood chose against returning to the spaghetti Western carousel. Fortunately, Bronson shines in the role, and Harmonica is one of the most memorable gun fighter protagonists out there. 

He's also the exact kind of chaotic presence that the town of Flagstone needs to get rid of evil outlaw Frank (Henry Fonda in a rare and committed villain turn) and his minions. Together with reformed bandit Cheyenne (Jason Robards) and justice-seeking widow Jill McBain (Claudia Cardinale), they clean up town, foiling the land acquisition plans of railroad tycoon Morton (Gabriele Ferzetti) in the process.

Notable for its gorgeous visuals and slow, methodical storytelling that evolved Leone's style, "Once Upon a Time in the West" is an important specimen in the director's catalog. To reflect this, it has a near-perfect 96% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes, and a well-deserved place in the National Film Registry.

With its 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer, "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" takes us even deeper into the near-perfect territory of Sergio Leone's career. If you have only seen one spaghetti Western in your life, there's a chance it's this 1966 finale of the Dollars trilogy. 

"The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" stars Clint Eastwood in his usual Man With No Name role — this time known as Blondie. As the "Good" of the central trio, he's a grim but not heartless bounty hunter in search of gold. He teams up with Tuco (Eli Wallach), the "Ugly:" A comical but capable bandit who seeks that same gold, and possesses some information that Blondie requires. The third tip of the power triangle is the "Bad" — Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef), a smirking villain who loves money and murder. There's a collision course, and the movie spends its sweet time setting up the pieces before things go literally bang.

While "Once Upon a Time in the West" is slicker, no other movie shows Sergio Leone's raw, distinctive style better than this one. The three-way duel at the end of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" might be the single greatest — or, at least, most famous — scene the filmmaker ever helmed. Fortunately, the movie around it is of that same quality, and it's not even Leone's best film. 

It takes a lot to be a better spaghetti Western than "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly," but Sergio Leone started his Dollars trilogy with a bang even he could never surpass. Made in 1964, "A Fistful of Dollars" has a 98% Tomatometer rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie's influence is immeasurable, not least because it changed Clint Eastwood's career. 

Eastwood stars as the first iteration of the Man with No Name, known here as Joe. Arriving in the town of San Miguel, he soon learns of the two criminal factions vying for control, and makes a cunning plan. He starts working for both families and playing them against each other, maximizing his own profit while causing massive destruction among the criminals. He soon becomes involved in more heroic activities including freeing an imprisoned woman named Marisol (Marianne Koch) and making friends with locals. Of course, the stranger's plots are eventually discovered, and it's time for the dramatic face-off with the main villain, Gian Maria Volonté's Ramón Rojo.

If you're familiar with Akira Kurosawa, you might correctly recognize this story as the plot of the Japanese filmmaker's 1961 work "Yojimbo." The remaking led to a lawsuit, but despite the behind-the-scenes turmoil, Leone's Western stands on its own two legs — and its near-universal acclaim is testament to its sheer quality.