From the opening whistle and whipcrack theme, to the final images of a vast cemetery stretching almost to infinity, THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY is surely one of the bloodiest, funniest and most wickedly entertaining portraits of human corruption ever made. Leone’s surreal masterpiece of the American West during the last days of the Civil War follows a trio of equally violent and unrepentant gunslingers (Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef) who engage in a jawdropping series of double- and triple-crosses to get their hands on a fortune in stolen Confederate gold.

Sergio Leone’s sequel to FISTFUL stars Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef as rival bounty hunters who wind up tracking the same man (Gian Maria Volonte). The final three-way shootout ranks with the greatest set pieces in moviemaking history.

Director Sergio Leone remade Akira Kurosawa’s YOJIMBO with Clint Eastwood as a poncho-wearing, cheroot-chewing assassin, and wound up with the most revolutionary Western of the 1960s (aided by composer Ennio Morricone’s instantly memorable theme music). Co-starring the great Italian actor Gian Maria Volonte (INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION) as Eastwood’s nemesis.