Sergio Leone was one of the greatest filmmakers of all time and is particularly well-known for his Westerns. With his first movie coming out in 1961 and his final one being released in 1984, his directing career was a regrettably short one. In that time, he made only seven films, and he passed away at the age of just 60 in 1989, with many unrealized projects sadly never coming to fruition (including an ambitious-sounding World War 2 epic about the siege of Leningrad).
It's tragic to look back on Leone's short career because he wasn't fully appreciated during his life, with critics dismissing his Westerns simply because they weren't made in America (the term "Spaghetti Western" was originally used derogatorily). Other films of his were impacted by executive meddling or felt too ahead of their time for some viewers. Yet his films have indeed stood the test of time, and his best movies are often considered among the greatest of all time. Below are all seven films Sergio Leone made during his directing career, ranked from worst to best.
7 'The Colossus of Rhodes' (1961)
Every director has to start somewhere, and when it comes to Sergio Leone, his debut was The Colossus of Rhodes. It's an old-fashioned epic set more than 2000 years ago, based around the titular bronze statue, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The plot, unfortunately, is a little messy, though is ostensibly about a well-known war hero getting pulled between two different plots (by two different organizations) to overthrow a king.
It plays out like a not-quite-amazing historical epic and may remind viewers of other films like Ben-Hur or Spartacus. It's not as good as those, and even though nothing about it is particularly terrible, it's also hard to feel much enthusiasm toward it. It doesn't have the same awe-inspiring visuals found in Leone's other, better movies, and it likely also suffers a little for being the only Sergio Leone film that didn't feature a score by the great composer Ennio Morricone.
6 'A Fistful of Dollars' (1964)
Most people will likely think of A Fistful of Dollars as Sergio Leone's first movie because even though that's not technically accurate, it was undeniably his first genuinely good film. Narratively, it borrows (or steals, depending on your definition) the premise from Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo, with both films being about a lone, highly-skilled, and cunning man entering a town that's plagued by gang warfare, with the man then attempting to eliminate two gangs at once by playing both sides against each other.
A Fistful of Dollars is also notable for helping make Clint Eastwood a true movie star, and his career would only grow from this point onwards. By the late 1960s, and especially into the 1970s, he was one of the biggest movie stars on the planet. Yet for having a great lead actor, a great composer (Morricone), and a great director behind it, A Fistful of Dollars is mostly good, maybe even very good. It may even be a minor classic, but though it's largely satisfying, it still pales in comparison to what was to come.
5 'For a Few Dollars More' (1965)
From this point on, every Sergio Leone movie is genuinely great. Some are just greater than others, and of his final five movies, one has to, unfortunately, be considered the "least amazing." As such, it stings to give For a Few Dollars More that title. It's a truly great movie and an improvement on all fronts compared to A Fistful of Dollars, which was made just one year earlier. Yet for Leone, his peak as a filmmaker still hadn't been achieved.
For a Few Dollars More loosely continues the previous Leone and Eastwood collaboration, though Eastwood's character is (probably) the only character to appear in both. The plot here concerns two men teaming up to track down the same notorious criminal, though each is shown to have different reasons for wanting to collect the bounty on him. It balances humor, tension, and emotion well, and builds to an excellent final act and an expectedly great final duel. It's great stuff — influential, too — and arguably ranks among the best Westerns of the 1960s.
4 'Duck, You Sucker' (1971)
Duck, You Sucker was Sergio Leone's penultimate movie, ultimately becoming his final Western. It stands out for having a darker and sadder tone than any Western he'd previously made, though this story about two men unexpectedly getting swept up in the 1913 Mexican Revolution isn't without hints of dark humor here and there.
The film is also sometimes known as either "A Fistful of Dynamite" (which makes it sound connected to the Dollars Trilogy) or "Once Upon a Time... the Revolution," which — more fittingly — connects it to Leone's other two movies that feature "Once Upon a Time" in the title. As the middle chapter of a second, looser Leone trilogy, it works amazingly well, with two great lead performances from Rod Steiger and James Coburn, a haunting Morricone score, memorably explosive set pieces, and a story that manages to feel surprisingly emotional at times. It is Leone's most underrated film and deserves just as much love as his more well-known classics.
3 'Once Upon a Time in the West' (1968)
Easily one of the greatest Italian movies of all time, Once Upon a Time in the West is essentially impossible to fault. There are at least three Sergio Leone movies you could call perfect, which makes ordering a top three to be a challenging task. Leone at his best, was too good, with these films arguably laying waste to the very concept of ranking anything, given at this point, there is no easy answer.
It's a sprawling epic that follows several main characters who cross paths throughout a story that unfolds over almost three hours. The main narrative revolves around a valuable plot of land that a widow is fighting to hold onto as a vicious assassin tries to take her down while two different men — both with their own mysterious pasts — do their best to defend her. It's slow but never boring, is beautiful to look at, proves to be surprisingly funny at times, and features a phenomenal ending. It represents the Western genre at what's essentially its best.
2 'Once Upon a Time in America' (1984)
With his final movie, Sergio Leone moved away from the Western genre, which he'd explored throughout his previous five films. It might be fitting that he turned his attention towards something else, given he'd basically perfected that genre in any event. As such, Once Upon a Time in America ended up being the filmmaker's swansong and stands as a truly epic film that's easily among the greatest crime movies of all time.
The plot centers on two characters (Robert De Niro and James Woods) throughout three core stages of their lives: as boys in the early 20th century, as adult bootleggers around the time of Prohibition, and then as aging men in their 60s, during the 1960s. It spans half a century with ease, cutting between the three timelines with a non-chronological narrative that becomes dreamier, stranger, and arguably more tragic as it goes along. It's unafraid to center its story around characters who do some truly despicable things, thereby showing a horrifically dark side of the criminal lifestyle. It can be a challenging watch, but the acting, music, and visual spectacle on display are essentially unparalleled, making Once Upon a Time in America one of Leone's best.
1 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly' (1966)
What could beat a perfect Western and a perfect crime epic for the #1 spot in Sergio Leone's filmography? His seminal film, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. It is pretty much the greatest Western of all time, and is the crown jewel of Leone's films.
It's hard to think of a movie getting a whole lot better than this, with a simple story about three men (Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, and Lee Van Cleef) competing for the same stash of buried gold in the desert paired with an epic scope, complex camerawork, and one of the most famous scores of all time. Regardless of how much you like Westerns, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is must-watch cinema, one of the best movies of all time, and also Sergio Leone's greatest achievement as a filmmaker.