The Critics' Choice

Top Rated Masterpieces

The cream of the crop. Based on global user ratings, these are the undisputed masterpieces of the Spaghetti Western genre.

The Spaghetti Western genre produced over 600 films between 1964 and 1978, but only a select few are truly considered masterpieces. This dynamic list aggregates user ratings from around the web to present the definitive canon of Italian Western cinema.

Factors influencing these rankings include direction, score, cultural impact, and technical innovation. From Leone's dollars trilogy to the political Zapata westerns, these are the films that every fan must see at least once.

10
My Name Is Nobody
7.3 Rating

Jack Beauregard, an aging gunman of the Old West, only wants to retire in peace and move to Europe, but a young gunfighter known as "Nobody" who idolizes Beauregard wants him to go out in a blaze of glory. So, he arranges for Jack to face the 150-man gang known as The Wild Bunch and earn his place in history.

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9
The Big Gundown
7.3 Rating

Unofficial lawman John Corbett hunts down Cuchillo Sanchez, a Mexican peasant accused of raping and killing a 12-year-old girl.

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8
Trinity Is Still My Name
7.4 Rating

The two brothers Trinity and Bambino are exchanged by two federal agents and take advantage of the situation to steal a huge booty hidden in a monastery by a gang of outlaws.

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7
The Great Silence
7.5 Rating

A mute gunslinger fights in the defense of a group of outlaws and a vengeful young widow, against a group of ruthless bounty hunters.

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6
They Call Me Trinity
7.6 Rating

The simple story has the pair coming to the rescue of peace-loving Mormons when land-hungry Major Harriman sends his bullies to harass them into giving up their fertile valley. Trinity and Bambino manage to save the Mormons and send the bad guys packing with slapstick humor instead of excessive violence, saving the day.

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5
Duck, You Sucker
7.7 Rating

At the beginning of the 1913 Mexican Revolution, greedy bandit Juan Miranda and idealist John H. Mallory, an Irish Republican Army explosives expert on the lam from the British, fall in with a band of revolutionaries plotting to strike a national bank. When it turns out that the government has been using the bank as a hiding place for illegally detained political prisoners -- who are freed by the blast -- Miranda becomes a revolutionary hero against his will.

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4
A Fistful of Dollars
7.8 Rating

The Man With No Name enters the Mexican village of San Miguel in the midst of a power struggle among the three Rojo brothers and sheriff John Baxter. When a regiment of Mexican soldiers bearing gold intended to pay for new weapons is waylaid by the Rojo brothers, the stranger inserts himself into the middle of the long-simmering battle, selling false information to both sides for his own benefit.

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3
For a Few Dollars More
8.0 Rating

Two bounty hunters both pursue the brutal and sadistic bandit, El Indio, who has a large bounty on his head.

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2
Once Upon a Time in the West
8.3 Rating

As the railroad builders advance unstoppably through the Arizona desert on their way to the sea, Jill arrives in the small town of Flagstone with the intention of starting a new life.

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1
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
8.5 Rating

While the Civil War rages on between the Union and the Confederacy, three men – a quiet loner, a ruthless hitman, and a Mexican bandit – comb the American Southwest in search of a strongbox containing $200,000 in stolen gold.

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