10 Films With Multiple Different Cuts

Once Upon a Time in America tells the story of the lives of best friends David "Noodles" Aaronson and Max Bercovicz as they lead a group of Jewish ghetto kids who rise up against the odds to become Jewish gangsters in New York City's world of organised crime.

It was Leone's last film before his untimely death aged 60, but the film completed his final entry in the Once Upon a Time Trilogy, following 1968's Once Upon a Time in the West and 1971's Duck, You Sucker!

Coming in at a whopping 229 minutes, Once Upon a Time in America had to be trimmed for audiences. Leone reportedly shot over ten hours worth of footage, which in turn was only trimmed down to 6 hours and Leone's idea of releasing the film in two parts was ultimately abandoned.

Leone's first cut of the film ran at 269 minutes (4-and-a-half-hours), which had to be cut down for its premiere at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival, and this was the version that was shown in Europe. However, the American wide release was again edited even further to a still very long 139 minutes (2 hours and 19 minutes) by the studio, which angered Leone and is part of the reason that he disliked the film so much.

However, in 2011, Leone's children supervised a restored version of the film, the original 269-minute version at a lab in Italy, although the film ran into rights issues, for which, veteran film director Martin Scorsese had to step in and help with.