A Fistful of Dollars

It wasn't really the first film of its kind, but the western all'Italiana - or "spaghetti Western" - was never the same again after Sergio Leone's groundbreaking A Fistful of Dollars, starring Clint Eastwood in the classic role that made him an international icon. A nameless stranger (Eastwood) rides into the Mexican border town of San Miguel and quickly finds himself in the middle of a bloody battle for power between two rival families, the Baxters and the Rojos. Cannily realising there's money to be made from playing each side against the other, the Man with No Name soon finds himself caught in the crossfire as the body count escalates, his only chance of escape a standoff against the Rojos' mercilessly cruel leader, Ramón (Gian Maria Volonté). Leone's clever and contemporary inversion of Western archetypes was not only the first entry in a much-beloved trilogy, but the director's first collaboration with the brilliant composer Ennio Morricone.