12 Badass Action Movies You Need To See Before You Die

By Ian Watson /

1. The Good The Bad And The Ugly (1966)

Most second sequels blow it, but The Good, The Bad And The Ugly has the right attitude €“ if they€™re going to give you more money to make another one, then you€™ve got to make the biggest, most grandiose, most outrageous horse opera ever committed to film. Throwing in everything except the proverbial sink, Sergio Leone tells a story that€™s nominally about the hunt for hidden treasure, yet also takes in sub-plots concerning betrayal, revenge and Civil War battles. And who could forget Ennio Morricone€™s score, or Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef in their signature roles? Stylistically, it€™s a million miles away from the Westerns of John Ford and Howard Hawks, and seems to take place in a never-never land where larger-than-life characters exist only to engage in hyper-violent showdowns, but that€™s the thing about the Spaghetti Westerns €“ they were always more outrageous fun than their American counterparts.