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Sergio Leone is the man who introduced the world to the spaghetti Western and popularized it into one of the most successful cinematic genres of the '60s and '70s. The bloodier, bolder, and far more contentious cousin of the American Western made up most of Leone's filmography, and he used its inherent sense of style to create a series of mesmerizing scenes in each picture.

The older and more experienced Sergio Leone grew, the more operatic his choreography, editing, and framing choices became, resulting in some of the most memorable action scenes ever captured on film. It's true that Sergio never quite mastered dialogue scenes, but when you're a literal master of dreaming up pulse-pounding action sequences, sometimes it's a good idea to stick to what you do best. Here are the ten best scenes in Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns.

The Hat Duel Is Low Stakes But...

For a Few Dollars More (1965) begins with a lone rider on the twilit plain somewhere in America. A shot rings out, and the rider's limp body falls from the horse. Leone's grim, prefatory joke is a strikingly crass reminder -- for those who may have forgotten the central conceit of A Fistful of Dollars (1964) -- that life is worth only as much as the bounty ascribed to it. A hand-drawn gale whips across the cracked earth, forming the block-lettered credits, accompanied by Ennio Morricone's score, gravely sparse with jaw harp and whistle, peppered with gunshots. Leone took a shoestring budget and made a masterpiece of anarchic fury, so he's done something quite extraordinary for a few dollars more.

Before the bloody meal begins, an epigraph: "Where life had no value, death, sometimes, had its price. That is why the bounty killers appeared." The first bounty killer, or hunter,...

Comedian El Es Fede couldn’t figure out how to make his stand-up routines work on TikTok. Sometimes, he’d post silly storytime-style videos or he’d play with viral sounds, getting a couple thousand views. But nothing ever took off like he wished it would.

Then, in January, he decided to try something completely different. He created a hilarious sketch imagining what happened when the popular duranguense act Alacranes Músical made their hit “Por Tu Amor” in the early 2000s. He played every role himself: the singer (in a...

Sound of Freedom premiered in 2023 and was successful, but its validity and accuracy have been questioned since its release. Tim Ballard, the founder of Operation Underground Railroad, parted ways with the organization amidst sexual misconduct allegations against him. The film's producer and an employee of Operation Underground Railroad have also faced sexual misconduct accusations.

Sound of Freedom premiered in July 2023 and was a surprise hit at the box office. But in the months following its release, the movie, the people behind the making of it, and its inspiration have been at the center of numerous controversies. The 2023 Angel Studios crime thriller film is based on Tim Ballard's work to combat sex trafficking and revolves around one of his missions to save a girl from a trafficking ring in Columbia. However, the truth behind the movie (and Ballard's accounts of his missions) has been questioned by many after its premiere.

Villains can outshine heroes in Western movies, stealing the spotlight with captivating performances. Villains like Ryan, John Herod, Calvera, and Charlie Prince exhibit morally ambiguous qualities, blurring the line between good and evil. Great Western movie villains, such as El Indio, Calvin Candie, and Frank, are capable of leaving a lasting impression and overshadowing the heroes.

The heroes usually take the spotlight in Western movies, but they’ve been overshadowed by the villains in some of the genre’s greatest entries. When it was first pioneered in the early days of film, the Western genre presented filmmakers with a framework to explore clear-cut stories of good versus evil. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the genre became a lot more complex as directors like Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Corbucci brought a rougher, bloodier vision of the Old West to the screen, featuring morally ambiguous antiheroes. In these movies, the heroes have villainous qualities,...

Although the number has increased over time, there are now twenty-four separate categories with golden statuettes doled out every year at the Academy Awards. Commonly, the statuettes are known as Oscars. But of course, these awards didn’t materialize out of thin air. They have a story stretching back to the inception of the association itself.

The first ceremony took place in May 1929, with the behind-the-scenes team working since two years prior to properly get their trademark statuettes into production. And while the figures themselves remain endlessly iconic as symbols of success and recognition in the film industry, many film fans may be unfamiliar with the man from whom the statue was modeled after: Emilio “El Indio” Fernández.

Who Is Emilio Fernandez?

As the most famous filmmaker to be born out of the Mexican Golden Age, he of course has several seminal titles under his directorial belt: take María Candelaria (1943) and Salón México (1949), for instance.

"Rabia"; with Alfredo "El Turco" Guiter, Amador Granados, Emilio "El Alteno" Franco; directed by Sebastian Cordero

By Lita Robinson - January 18, 2011

Director Sebastian Cordero’s third film, “Rage” (“Rabia”), follows two immigrants in a hostile, xenophobic Spain as they try to scrape together a living. After José Maria (Gustavo Sanchez Parra), the origin of the eponymous rage, accidentally kills his boss on a construction site, he takes refuge inside the huge mansion where Rosa (Martina Garcia) works as a housekeeper. The rest of the film follows Rosa’s travails as José Maria silently watches, starving in the shadowy attic, until they’re finally reunited.

Although Cordero’s film ends rather predictably, its strength can be found in its period of limbo, during which Rosa doesn’t know what’s happened to her boyfriend or what she’s going to do with her life. Her feelings of uncertainty only get worse...