Every Once Upon A Time Movie Ranked Worst To Best

Could it be anything else?

All the later Once Upon A Time movies are referring back to this one in one way or another, even Leone's own.

After his Dollars Trilogy of high tempo, violent, satirical Clint Eastwood westerns, Leone planned to retire from the genre that made his name. However, the opportunity to work with Henry Fonda, a genuine Hollywood hero, and to turn his good guy reputation upside down pulled him back in for one final go.

As with those earlier Leone films, this story of conflict and vengeance against the backdrop of the arrival of the railroad is a riff on the iconography of classic American westerns, ironically reworked to show the period as a darker time ruled by violence.

Rather than the tongue-in-cheek style of the Dollars films, though, Once Upon A Time is made up of long shots, stark dialogue and a somber tone, interested as much in the quiet before the outbursts of violence as the violence itself. It's a style adopted, for better or worse, by several other films on this list.

Once Upon A Time In The West flopped in America on its original release in 1969, but over time its classic status has became so assured that every other movie on this list basked in its reflected glory by borrowing its name. Of course that means it has to be number one.