50 years ago: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the best known spaghetti western of all time, released

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo) Released: December 23, 1966 Studio: Produzioni Europee Associate Genre: Western Box Office (numbers in millions): Domestic: 25.10 Worldwide: 25.25 Adjusted for Inflation: Domestic: 186.80 Worldwide: 187.94

Directing: Sergio Leone Screenwriting: Age & Scarpelli, Luciano Vincenzoni, Sergio Leone Starring: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach Review: The third installment in Italian director Sergio Leone’s epic trilogy was actually a prequel to A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and For a Few Dollars More (1965). “This sweeping, stylistic, and operatic film” FS has become possibly “the best known ‘spaghetti western’ of all time,” FS credited as “invigorated the ailing western.” PM Like Leone’s other westerns, the movie “is viciously violent and machismo in tone, but buoyed by the classic, instantly recognizable, twanging Ennio Morricone score.” FS It features “very little dialogue…and vast widescreen landscapes.” FS “Leone built the action to a vertiginous climax, intercutting vivid panoramas with jarring close-ups.” PM This is his movie which “best balances art and entertainment.” E18 The film is set during the Civil War. Leone traveled to America to research the Civil War at the Library of Congress. He credited “legendary Civil War photographer Mathew B. Brady's expansive collection of images documenting the war as a main source of inspiration.” MSN The story focuses on acquiring “a treasure chest of $200,000 in stolen Confederate gold buried in a grave at a faraway location.” FS Three “basically amoral, anti-social bounty hunters, outlaws, and murderers, are forced to form an uneasy partnership or alliance, leading to the film’s climactic graveyard shootout in which the opportunistic desperados find themselves facing off one last time for the fortune.” FS Clint Eastwood plays “the unsmiling anti-hero ‘Good’ guy” FS known as “The Man with No Name.” He was in all three of Leone’s Dollar movies, but this was his “star-making role.” FS “Angel Eyes Sentenza (Van Cleef) serves as the vile and ruthless ‘Bad’ guy, and Tuco Ramirez (Wallach) provides the greedy, talkative, clownish and self-centered ‘Ugly.’” FS It’s the latter who “steals this Wild West show.” E18 Sources: E18 Empire (3/20/2018). “The 100 Greatest Movies” FS Filmsite.org “100 Greatest Films” MSN MSN Entertainment (7/19/2018). “100 Best Movies” by Shahnaz Mahmud PM Premiere Magazine (Oct. 1998). “100 Most Daring Movies Ever Made”

Awards/Honors/Lists: Dave’s Movie Database Lists: Dave’s Movie Database Genre Lists: Awards: Oscars: Wins: 0 Nominations: 0 Other Lists/Honors: Critics’ Picks: Quentin Tarantino First posted 6/7/2023.

Spotlight wins the Oscar for Best Picture

Spotlight Released: November 6, 2015 Studio: Open Road Films Genre: drama Box Office (numbers in millions): Domestic: 45.06 Worldwide: 98.69 Adjusted for Inflation: Domestic: -- Worldwide: --

Directing: Tom McCarthy Screenwriting: Tom McCarthy, Josh Singer Starring: Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Live Schreiber, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci Review: This 2015 movie is based on a series of stories reported by the investigative journalist unit (known as the “Spotlight” team) of The Boston Globe that earned a Pulitzer Prize in 2003. The movie focuses on the team investigating a decades-long coverup of widespread sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests. Screenplay writers McCarthy and Singer display “an investigative reporter’s flair for seeing beyond the headlines and getting the story behind the story.” GN The “Spotlight” team, led by Walter “Robby” Robinson (Keaton), delves into an old story about accusations of child abuse against retired priest John Geoghan at the behest of Marty Baron (Schreiber), the new out-of-town editor. In regards to the rest of the cast, Ruffalo, as Michael Rezendes, is “the closest thing this ensemble cast has to a star turn, a long-suppressed outburst of emotion providing one of the film’s few grandstanding showstoppers.” GN As Sacha Pfeiffer, McAdams “has one of the very best scenes in the movie, a moment that balances a distant crisis of faith with the real and present courage of conviction.” GN “The journalists soon find themselves locking heads with both the religious and legal institutions at the heart of a wide-ranging, systemic cover-up.” GN Spotlight explores “how an entire community may become complicit in an unspoken crime.” GN In addition, the newspaper “must face up to its own shortcomings in failing to follow up a story that should have been front-page news several years ago.” GN Sources: GN The Guardian movie vewi by Mark Kermode WK Wikipedia

Awards/Honors/Lists: Dave’s Movie Database Lists: Eras: Awards: Oscars: Wins: 2: Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay Nominations: 6: Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Ruffalo), Best Supporting Actress (McAdams), Best Film Editing Lists: First posted 3/4/2025.