FAQ

Once Upon a Time in the West is based on a screenplay by Italian film director Sergio Leone and screenwriter Sergio Donati. It is the first part of a Sergio Leone trilogy and is followed by Duck, You sucker aka A Fistful of Dynamite [Todesmelodie (1971)] and Es war einmal in Amerika (1984).

In contrast to any other DVD release worldwide, which only contain the well-known international version of Sergio Leone's classical masterpiece, the Italian DVD contains another version, which was also released on Italian VHS earlier, the so-called "Director's Cut". This Director's Cut seems to be the first, complete version by Sergio Leone before it was edited for a worldwide release. The Director's Cut contains a fistful of extended scenes where the actors talk (more or less) directly to the camera. There is no dub for these scenes, except the Italian dub. Purchasing the Italian DVD is kind of superfluous: most of the "new" footage are just an extension of scenes which are quite long anyway, some few alternate shots are in it as well.

For the Blu-ray release in 2011, the international version of the movie was extended by 4 scenes, summing up to 21½ seconds. Additionally, there is still a much longer Director's Cut available in Italy.