1. Once Upon A Time In The West (1968)
ParamountWhile The Good, the Bad and the Ugly provided an epic conclusion to an epic Western trilogy, Leone's following film Once Upon a Time in the West remains the ultimate epic tale of the American frontier, recalling as many Western classics as it influenced in the decades since. Charles Bronson turned down roles in the Dollars Trilogy only to actively seek the role of the enigmatic protagonist Harmonica, a role for which he certainly takes a page from the Eastwood Brooding notebook. But the more brilliant casting is with Henry Fonda, who had previously been the handsome good guy in Western films. Leone cast him as the seething, purely evil Frank, and after seeing Fonda in the role many questioned why he had never played a villain before. The collision course of Harmonica and Frank is colored by a dozen other characters, including Jason Robards's bandit Cheyenne, Gabriele Ferzetti's crippled tycoon Morton, and Claudia Cardinale's beautiful Jill McBain. Rightfully, though, the tale is ultimately a battle between two men, and the reveal during the final shootout approaches a level of epic grandeur that no Western film, not even The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, has ever reached before or since.
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