Western
Italian (Per un pugno di dollari)
1964 · Directed by Sergio Leone · 99 min
A lone, near-silent gunman rides into a dusty border town split between two feuding families. He sizes up both sides and decides there is money to be made from the standoff. Lean, wry and violent, it recasts the Western as a game of nerve and cynicism.
Why it matters in cinema history
A defining film of the Spaghetti Western and a turning point in how the Western looked, sounded and moralised, opening the way for the darker, more cynical Westerns of the late 1960s and 1970s.
Watch with intention
Watch it as a Western rebuilt around style: faces, silence and music do the work that dialogue and honour used to do.
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