Sergio Leone is one of the most influential directors of all time, but how do his movies rank from worst to best? Like his peer Jean-Luc Godard and his acolyte Quentin Tarantino, Leone bridged the gap between high and low art, elevating trite genre stories via an operatic aesthetic that, at its best, remains unmatched all these years later. The son of pioneering director Vincenzo Leone and actress Bice Valerian, Sergio spent much of his childhood in Rome - at one time attending school with his future musical collaborator Ennio Morricone - before dropping out of university to pursue a career in the film industry.
Cutting his teeth as an assistant or second-unit director on various movies before landing his first gig as a director proper. Leone began in earnest with cheaply-made Sword and Sandal movies, and then went on to reinvent the Western genre - directing five Spaghetti Westerns in his native Italy, before exploring the popular Gangster genre in his final picture. While his filmography is now well-regarded, Leone’s movies received a lot of criticism in their day - often exacerbated by drastic edits for international markets. Thankfully, each of these films has since been made available in full.
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The director’s many trademarks include morally-grey characters, dialogue-free sequences, sweeping landscapes, probing close-ups, and transcendent scores by Ennio Morricone. Here’s every movie in Leone’s filmography ranked from worst to best.
8. The Last Days of Pompeii (1959)
1959’s The Last Days of Pompeii marked Sergio Leone’s directorial debut - if unofficially. The credited director, Mario Bonnard, fell ill on the first day of filming, so Leone (having had experience as an assistant director) took over in his absence. Starring Steve “Hercules” Reeves, The Last Days of Pompeii tells the story of Glaucus - a Roman centurion who returns home to Pompeii only to find his father murdered amid a series of cult-led attacks. Vowing revenge, Glaucus attempts to track down his father’s killers - becoming embroiled in a mystery that threatens to destroy Pompeii. Combining the Sword and Sandal genre with a Murder Mystery, it’s ambitious stuff - but ends up drowning in its own decadence.
From the get-go, Leone presents a very lived-in world. There’s always something interesting going on in the background: marble sculptures, quirky extras, the constant flickering of torches. Unfortunately, these background elements are ultimately more impressive than the story being told. The characters are paper-thin, lacking in personality, and the actors seem hampered by the pseudo-historical dialogue - stilted and stony-faced in their deliveries.
7. The Colossus of Rhodes (1961)
After proving his talent on The Last Days of Pompeii, Leone made his official directorial debut with The Colossus of Rhodes. Another sword-and-sandal epic, the film improved on his previous uncredited effort - offering greater political intrigue, bigger set-pieces, better effects, and (most importantly) a more charismatic lead. TV and B-movie star Rory Calhoun plays Darios, a Greek military hero holidaying in Rhodes - home of the newly built Colossus - who becomes embroiled in two separate plots to overthrow the island’s tyrannical king. While less physically imposing than Reeves, Calhoun lends an easy charm to the role; Cary Grant in a loincloth, essentially - a fitting protagonist given the film’s decidedly Hitchcockian plot.
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In a pulpy twist, the titular Colossus (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) is revealed to be hollow; the legendary statue housing a villain’s lair. It’s an inspired choice, riffing on Hitchcock’s use of famous landmarks in his own espionage films, and a memorable location for some hair-raising action scenes. All that said, The Colossus of Rhodes outstays its welcome - losing steam due to its overstuffed cast and uneven pacing. While the action has certainly improved, Leone’s direction is still pretty workmanlike here - something that would change with his next feature film.
6. Duck, You Sucker! (1971)
An overlooked gem in Leone’s impressive crown, Duck, You Sucker! was the director’s final Once Upon a Time in America: Leone’s final feature film.
Duck, You Sucker! gets a lot right, with brilliant performances from Steiger and Coburn in spite of their dodgy accents. Honestly, the film’s biggest problem is its title. Alternately referred to as both A Fistful of Dynamite and Once Upon a Time… The Revolution, the former title is definitely better (and also preferable to Duck, You Sucker!) but doesn’t signify the film’s place in Leone’s Once Upon a Time Trilogy. Once Upon a Time in Mexico would have been the obvious choice - later used by Robert Rodriguez for the second entry in his own Mariachi Trilogy.
5. A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
Leone’s first spaghetti western and the first entry in his Dollars Trilogy, Clint Eastwood) arrives in a troubled town looking for work. Pitting two rival factions against each other, he reaps the rewards until discovering an innocent family trapped amid the conflict and decides to help their cause. A Fistful of Dollars also marks the beginning of Leone’s long collaboration with composer Ennio Morricone, with the score far more prominent than in earlier Leone films.
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While Rory Calhoun was cool in an unassuming kind of way, Eastwood is a full-on badass: steely-eyed, cigar-chomping, with a swagger that could rival Mick Jagger - yet, beneath his dusty poncho, lies a heart of gold. Trading hand-to-hand combat for more calculated gunfights allowed Leone to shine as a director. Shoot-outs tend to begin and end fairly quickly, like the punchline to a joke. For the first time, we see Leone as a master of the set-up, building suspense through a series of intimate close-ups paired with Morricone’s breathtaking score, transcending the film’s scrappy aesthetic and tugging on the tailcoats of opera. It’s spectacular stuff but, as far as Leone’s talent is concerned, only the tip of the iceberg: a premonition, whispered through gunsmoke, of the legend he would later become.
4. For a Few Dollars More (1965)
How did Leone improve on A Fistful of Dollars? Three syllables: Lee Van Cleef. A rival bounty hunter and reluctant ally of Eastwood’s returning hero, Van Cleef’s Colonel Mortimer proves the perfect counterpoint, preferring a calm and calculated approach - less rough-and-ready than Eastwood, but equally imposing. In For a Few Dollars More, The pair team up to defeat a ruthless bank robber: El Indio, played by Gian Maria Volonté.
Volonté is terrific in the role, his musical pocket watch becoming the stuff of legend - Morricone’s “Watch Chimes” among the most haunting music ever written. The film’s increased budget is readily apparent, as are Leone’s loftier ambitions, and the story moves along from set-piece to set-piece - with more varied locations than seen in A Fistful of Dollars, as well as stronger action.
3. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
The first entry in Leone’s Once Upon a Time Trilogy, Once Upon a Time in the West, is a visionary work that luxuriates in its landscape, shows without telling, and isn’t afraid to let its simple story breathe. Set during America’s gentrification, Once Upon a Time in the West marked the beginning of Leone’s waning interest in the genre that he’d helped to redefine - its transitional theme becoming the trilogy’s main throughline. The storytelling equivalent of a sunset; its characters are forced to confront the changing times, heralded by the coming of the railroad. When Brett McBain (Frank Wolff) is murdered, his new wife Jill McBain (Claudia Cardinale) inherits his land - containing one of the few water sources in the region.
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With dollar signs in his eyes, a railroad tycoon endeavors to take ownership of Jill’s land and enlists the help of Frank (Henry Fonda), a hired gun, to make his dream a violent reality. A harmonica-playing drifter (Charles Bronson) and a framed bandit (Jason Robards) have their own bones to pick with Frank, becoming sympathetic to Jill’s plight, and the trio work together to bring him down. Cardinale steals the show as Jill, bringing a different energy to Leone’s work - refreshing amidst his generally male-centric filmography.
2. Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
The final entry in the Once Upon a Time Trilogy and Leone’s last feature film, Once Upon a Time in America saw the director tackle a new genre - crime pictures - with Robert De Niro in tow as Noodles: a former gangster who returns to New York City thirty-five years after he left, forced to confront the sins of his past. Noodles is likely Leone’s most complex protagonist - just as well given the film’s mammoth runtime (a touch shy of four hours long). De Niro is an absolute powerhouse as always, playing Noodles at a variety of ages - not unlike Martin Scorcese’s The Irishman, but with practical make-up effects instead of CGI.
The ing cast too are excellent (including Joe Pesci and a young Jennifer Connolly), with multiple actors playing the same roles in different time periods. The film is impressively free from the usual confusion that can arise during such era-spanning narratives, with each actor maintaining a cohesive continuity of personality. The production design is gorgeous, painting New York in a decidedly European light, its landmarks waxing and waning with the age of time. While Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather films can take credit for reinvigorating the gangster genre, Leone grabbed the baton with both hands - creating his most mature work in the process.
1. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)
The final entry in Leone’s Dollars Trilogy, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, is quite possibly the coolest movie ever made and the best Western in existence. When three men learn of buried treasure, they race to retrieve it - encountering all manner of obstacles along the way, including the ensuing Civil War. Eli Wallach s Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef as Tuco: a wily bandit and, frequently, the film’s comic relief - proving the perfect counterpoint to the more honorable figures cut by the film’s returning leads. A tale of switching allegiances, it sweeps the audience along - its characters on a constant knife-edge; causing you to wonder which allegiance, if any, will end up ringing true in the end and which of the three lead characters, if any, actually deserves their reductive moniker.
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Regarding the Civil War, the film refuses to pick a side - its characters masquerading as both union and confederate soldiers throughout the course of the story - but, rather, questions the notion of war in the first place: old men sending young men to die in droves is pretty grim, regardless of which side they’re on. Boasting a runtime just shy of three hours, it’s epic but rarely indulgent on Leone’s part - offering a crowd-pleasing ride all the way. In short: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is everything you could hope for in a Western, full of personality and brimming with vision.
