Once Upon a Time in the West (C’era Una Volta il West)

Released: December 20, 1968

Studio: Euro International Films, Paramount Pictures

Genre: western

Box Office (numbers in millions):

Domestic: 5.32 Worldwide: 5.38

Adjusted for Inflation:

Domestic: 689.70 Worldwide: 697.35

Directing: Sergio Leone

Screenwriting: Sergio Donati, Sergio Leone

Starring: Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards

Review:

This is director and co-writer Sergio “Leone’s timeless monument to the death of the West itself, rivalled only by Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid for the title of best ever made.” ^T95 This is “a magnificent, baroque costume picture,” ^T98 an “epic ballad of revenge, redemption and the painful rooting of civilization in the Old West.” ^E18

Leone traverses similar territory as he explored with The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. Like that classic Western, this story “concerns three men – one mysterious (Charles Bronson), one seemingly amoral (Jason Robards Jr.) and one evil (Henry Fonda, playing brilliantly against type).” ^E18 “The plot follows Bronson’s obsessive quest to bring down Fonda, the sadist who hanged his brother.” ^E’00

“It’s the most political of Leone’s oat operas, indicting the corrupt railroad which, as it bulldozes across the landscape, displacing innocent people and hiring outlaw flunkeys to shift inconvenient settlers who won't unsettle easily.” ^E’00

“Nobody has made a better Western since. In fact, nobody has made a better Western, period.” ^E’00