10 Best Movie Trilogies Ever Made

Few filmmakers can claim to have moulded a genre to such an extent that their name becomes synonymous with it. Sergio Leone is one of those filmmakers. Leone's Dollars Trilogy – also sometimes referred to as the Man With No Name Trilogy – gave rise to the Spaghetti Western subgenre and helped Clint Eastwood become a household name.

A Fistful Of Dollars was first up, arriving in theatres in 1964 and giving Eastwood, at the time known mostly for his TV work, his first lead role. A cheeky, unsanctioned remake of Kurosawa's Yojimbo that resulted in a successful lawsuit, Fistful followed Eastwood's quintessential, unscrupulous gunslinger as he exploits a feud-filled town for his own personal gain.

For A Few Dollars More was released the following year and saw Eastwood’s bounty hunter team up with Lee Van Cleef to hunt down a ruthless fugitive. And a year later, Leone polished off his unintended trilogy with best-in-show The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, in which Eastwood and Van Cleef are joined by Eli Wallach as the three gunslingers searching for a cache of Confederate gold.

Largely underappreciated on release, the Dollars Trilogy has since become certified cinema gold thanks to Leone's canny direction, Eastwood's easy magnetism and composer Ennio Morricone's iconic scores.