3. A Fistful Of Dollars (1964)
United ArtistsThere are so many iconic moments in the first film of the Dollars Trilogy, and it's easy to see why the films that followed became so successful with such a strong foundation to build upon. Clint Eastwood became a star because of his performance as the casual, cigar-chewing cowboy Joe, and although Eastwood initially refused future Leone films on the grounds that the characters were so similar he still made a career out of Westerns in the years following. The plot of A Fistful of Dollars is relatively simple - two warring families are further pitted against each other by Eastwood's fast-drawing gunslinger. But Leone's first Western was real in a way that the genre had previously not seen - the men were sweaty and poorly-shaven, the streets were sandy, the taverns were smoky and full of sin. Since then, nearly every film about the American West has followed this formula. And when Clint Eastwood passes a coffinmaker, orders three new boxes, and then corrects himself upon shooting a fourth man, it's hard not to recognize how important the script is to the flow of the film. Plus, if he had never used a cast iron plate as a bulletproof vest, Marty McFly would never have been able to get out of that pickle with Buford Tannen.