Re-evaluation
Despite the initial negative reception by some critics, the film has since accumulated very positive feedback. It is listed in Time's "100 Greatest Movies of the Last Century" as selected by critics Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel.[85][94] The Good, the Bad and the Ugly has been described as European cinema's best Western,[95] and Quentin Tarantino has called it "the best-directed film of all time" and "the greatest achievement in the history of cinema".[96] This was reflected in his votes for the 2002 and 2012 Sight & Sound magazine polls, in which he voted for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as his choice for the best film ever made.[97] Its main music theme from the soundtrack is regarded by Classic FM as one of the most iconic themes of all time.[98] Variety magazine ranked the film number 49 on their list of the 50 greatest movies.[99] In 2002, Film4 held a poll of the 100 Greatest Movies, on which The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was voted in at number 46.[100] Premiere magazine included the film on their 100 Most Daring Movies Ever Made list.[101] Mr. Showbiz ranked the film #81 on its 100 Best Movies of All Time list.[102]
Empire magazine added The Good, the Bad and the Ugly to their Masterpiece collection in the September 2007 issue, and their poll of "The 500 Greatest Movies", The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was voted in at number 25. In 2014, The Good the Bad and the Ugly was ranked the 47th greatest film ever made on Empire's list of "The 301 Greatest Movies Of All Time" as voted by the magazine's readers.[103] It was also placed on a similar list of 1000 movies by The New York Times.[104] In 2014, Time Out polled several film critics, directors, actors and stunt actors to list their top action films. The Good, The Bad and the Ugly placed 52nd on their list.[105] An article on the BBC website considers the 'lasting legacy of the film, and describes the trio scene as "one of the most riveting and acclaimed feature films sequences of all time".[106]
In popular culture
The film's title has entered the English language as an idiomatic expression. Typically used when describing something thoroughly, the respective phrases refer to upsides, downsides, and the parts that could, or should have been done better, but were not.[107]
Quentin Tarantino paid homage to the film's climactic stand-off scene in his 1992 film Reservoir Dogs.[106]
The film was novelized in 1967 by Joe Millard as part of the "Dollars Western" series based on the "Man with No Name". The South Korean western movie The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008) is inspired by the film, with much of its plot and character elements borrowed from Leone's film.[108] In his introduction to the 2003 revised edition of his novel The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, Stephen King said the film was a primary influence for the Dark Tower series, with Eastwood's character inspiring the creation of King's protagonist, Roland Deschain.[109]
In 1975, Willie Colón with Yomo Toro and Hector Lavoe, released an album titled The Good, the Bad, the Ugly. The album cover featured the three in cowboy attire.[110]
Impact on Western genre
While the Dollars Trilogy was not the beginning of the so-called Spaghetti Western cycle in Italy, many in the US saw it as the beginning of an Italian invasion of the most recognizably American film genre. Christopher Frayling argues that, on the whole, Americans had become "bored with an exhausted Hollywood genre". He notes that Pauline Kael, for example, had appreciated how non-American films of the time "could exploit the conventions of the Western genre, while debunking its morality". Along with Peter Bondanella and others, Frayling argues that such revisionism was the key to Leone's success and, to some degree, to that of the Spaghetti Western genre as a whole.[111] The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, like the later Once Upon A Time In The West, belongs to multiple Western sub-genres: Epic Western, Outlaw (Gunfighter) Film, Revisionist Western and Spaghetti Western.[112][113]
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly has been called the definitive Spaghetti Western – colloquially, these are Westerns produced and directed by Italians, often in collaboration with other European countries, especially Spain and West Germany. The name 'Spaghetti Western' originally was a pejorative term, given by foreign critics to these films because they thought they were inferior to American westerns.[114] Most of the films were made with low budgets, but several still managed to be innovative and artistic, although at the time they did not get much recognition, even in Europe.[115] The genre is unmistakably a Catholic genre, with a visual style strongly influenced by the Catholic iconography of, for instance, the crucifixion or the last supper.[116][117] The outdoor scenes of many Spaghetti Westerns, especially those with a relatively higher budget, were shot in Spain, in particular the Tabernas desert of Almería and Colmenar Viejo and Hoyo de Manzanares. In Italy, the region of Lazio was a favorite location.[118][119][120]
The genre expanded and became an international sensation with the success of Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars, an adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's samurai film Yojimbo. But a handful of westerns were made in Italy before Leone redefined the genre, and the Italians were not the first to make westerns in Europe in the sixties. But it was Leone who defined the look and attitude of the genre with his first western and the two that soon were to follow: For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Together these films are called the Dollars Trilogy. Leone's portrayal of the west, in the latter, was not concerned with ideas of the frontier or good vs. evil but rather interested in how the world is unmistakably more complicated than that, and how the western world is one of kill or be killed. These films featured knifings, beatings, shootouts, or other violent action every five to ten minutes. "The issue of morality belongs to the American western," explains Italian director Ferdinando Baldi. "The violence in our movies is more gratuitous than in American films. There was very little morality because often the protagonist was a bad guy." Eastwood's character is a violent and ruthless killer who murders opponents for fun and profit. Behind his cold and stony stare is a cynical mind powered by a dubious morality. Unlike earlier cowboy heroes, Eastwood's character constantly smokes a small cigar and hardly ever shaves. He wears a flat-topped hat and Mexican poncho instead of more traditional western costuming. He never introduces himself when he meets anyone, and nobody ever asks his name. Furthermore, Spaghetti Westerns redefined the western genre to fit the everchanging times of the 1960s and '70s. Rather than portraying the traditional mythic West as an exotic and beautiful land of opportunity, hope, and redemption, they depicted a desolate and forsaken West. In these violent and troubled times, Spaghetti Westerns, with their antiheroes, ambiguous morals, brutality, and anti-Establishment themes, resonated with audiences. The film's gratuitous violence, surrealistic style, gloomy look, and eerie sound captured the era's melancholy. It is this new approach to the genre that defined the revisionist western of the late '70s and early '80s; a movement started by this moral ambiguity of the Spaghetti Westerns, as well as a westerns placement in the context of historical events; both attributes defined and set by The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly.[121]
These films were undeniably stylish. With grandiose wide shots and close-ups that peered into the eyes and souls of the characters, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, had the defining cinematographic techniques of the Spaghetti Western. This was Leone's signature technique, using long drawn shots interspersed with extreme close-ups that build tension, as well as develop characters. However, Leone's movies were not just influenced by style. As Quentin Tarantino notes:
There was also realism to them: those shitty Mexican towns, the little shacks — a bit bigger to accommodate the camera — all the plates they put the beans on, the big wooden spoons. The films were so realistic, which had always seemed to be missing in the westerns of the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, in the brutality and the different shades of grey and black. Leone found an even darker black and off-white. There is realism in Leone's presentation of the Civil War in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly that was missing from all the Civil War movies that happened before him. Leone's film, and the genre that he defined within it, shows a west that is more violent, less talky, more complex, more theatrical, and just overall more iconic through the use of music, appearing operatic as the music is an illustrative ingredient of the narrative.[122]
With a greater sense of operatic violence than their American cousins, the cycle of spaghetti westerns lasted just a few years, but it has been said to have rewritten the genre.[123]
Film tourism
Fans of the film have reconstructed the location of the Sad Hill Cemetery in Santo Domingo de Silos.[124] The reconstruction was recorded in the documentary Sad Hill Unearthed (2017) by Guillermo de Oliveira.[125] In 2024, the Sabinares del Arlanza Natural Park announced a plan to rebuild the Betterville prisoner camp at its filmed location about 6 km from Sad Hill.[126]
