9. The Good, The BadAand The Ugly - (1966, Sergio Leone)
Today, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is considered perhaps the best film in the entire Western genre; indeed even Quentin Tarantino has described it as "the best directed of all time". Not only did Leone manage to round off his Dollars trilogy of films in style but he did it on a shoe-string budget of just $1.2 million. Despite all this lofty acclaim which is now inseparable from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, it was slammed by critics upon its release. Not only was it a Spaghetti Western a genre which was at the time believed to be devoid of artistic merit but it was also riddled with exaggerated gore and violence. In the New York Times Renata Adler put:
"The Good the Bad and the Ugly must be the most interminable, pious and repellent movie in the history of its peculiar genre."
Even in his review, the late great Roger Ebert was critical of the film he would revise this review explaining that he was overly critical due to his prejudice of the genre. Once the stigma surrounding the Western faded it allowed The Good, the Bad and the Ugly to ascend to its classic status.