Vote for Our Official Top 20

Yes, but you’re a hardened SW masochist … I’m talking about the poor unsuspecting virgins ! :rofl:

:joy: That is so correct.

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Me, I was a virgin for forty years, but a suspicious one. Glad I finally gave in.

Yes, I’m speaking of non-Leone SWs.

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Well, FaFDM is often trashy enough, and in the 2nd half in parts also poorly constructed, so that other Spags shouldn’t be that big a problem. As long as one sticks to the more famous examples of the sub-genre.

But then, people who have only watched Leone’s westerns mostly still think these are US westerns, and will not become automatically interested in other European westerns, and people who are interested in Spags mostly have an idea what they will get.

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People quickly realise that a great deal of the films outside of Leone’s end up being guilty pleasures, as opposed to genuinely good.

Absolutely not for me.

But then, luckily I have generally no guilty pleasures.
Films which are entertaining (for whatever reasons) don’t make me feel guilty to whatever degree, and boring films can’t give me any kind of pleasure (and actually don’t make me feel guilty too, only bored).

And btw, there are two kinds of films in the world … :wink:

I’m not sure I’d agree with that. I don’t think any spags reach the heights of GBU and OUATIW but I don’t think any movies do. I think a fair few come close though: The Big Gundown, The Mercenary, Companeros, The Price of Power, Cemetery Without Crosses and The Great Silence (as well as a fair number of others) are all fantastic films in my humble. Even Lower budget spags like The Dirty Outlaws and Shoot the Living… are fine art considering how little money you can tell the filmmakers had.

You both have good points to make, Stanton and Dean … Not that I’m overly concerned with the average ‘man in the street’ or his or her knowledge or level of interest.
I gave up years ago trying to explain to some casual viewers, who assumed ‘High Plains Drifter’ and ‘Hang ‘Em High’ were Spags, just because Clint was the star and they were much grittier movies than say a John Wayne film of the time. I was also amazed that many of these people weren’t even aware how the term Spaghetti Western came about !!!
A lot depends on the age of the viewer and which part of the world you come from - for instance, I’m 52 and live in N.Ireland, where we had 3 TV channels in the 1970s … and as a child SWs were rarely shown on TV, with the exception of the Leone movies.
From my childhood I can remember seeing a season of SWs on BBC2, which was then considered the cultural channel … apart from the first 2 Dollar movies and ‘Fistful of Dynamite’, the season included both ‘Trinity’ films and the original ‘Sabata’ … that was it! The only others that turned up randomly and very late at night, were ‘The Mercenary’, under the UK title, ‘A Professional Gun’, ‘Five Man Army’, and a once only showing of ‘Death Rides a Horse’, when the TV announcer actually apologised at the end of the film for the poor dubbing! So, the attitude towards these films was not one of respect. Others that turned up later in the 80s/early 90s were shown on Alex Cox’ programme,‘Moviedrome’, which screened ‘A Bullet for the General’, ‘Face to Face’, ‘Django’ and ‘Requiescant’ … by this stage, the UK now had 5 channels, and sporadically some of the ‘sandpit’ zero budget films would turn up, again, very late at night … I have vague memories of seeing one of the Sartana rip off films (could have been a Fidani ?) and ‘The Return of Shanghai Joe’ … So barely enough titles over 4 decades to actually make a Top 20.
Throughout these lean years of exposure to the films, I collected Morricone soundtracks, and to me it’s amazing that it took nearly 30 years between hearing the music of ‘Navajo Joe’ and ‘The Big Gundown’, before I actually got to see these films.
I wonder if there are any other UK or Irish members who can remember any other titles I may have missed ?
I know from comments that many mainland European countries showed a wide selection of these films regularly … and I’m reminded of my 2nd trip to Almeria, where I’d been exploring the desert area known as Las Salinillas (Death Rides a Horse - Mexican village) and on returning to my ‘Hostal’, found that ‘The Ruthless Four’ aka ‘Ognuno per se’ (1968) was playing on TV, and most of the action takes place in the exact area I’d been wandering only hours before. BTW, the ruthless 4 just wander around in circles in the same area, just shot from a variety of angles, when they’re supposed to be miles from home and short on water … Anyway, I’ve gone off topic rather, but that just shows how much love I still have for the genre after more than 40 years.
‘Fine’ :smile:

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I’ve seen people ask if the Kill Bill movies are Spaghetti Westerns :joy:

Oh boy! … never underestimate how dumb the cinema going public can be! :grimacing:

I would say, this is my attitude also, but then again, there are movies like Barb Wire, Lone Runner or Interzone (sorry to make a turn into postapo subgenre), which I would regard as guilty pleasures, because, that is only possible answer to people asking me why I like that crap and don’t look like a complete retard. :joy:

But only if a girl wants to know, I assume …

I certainly don’t feel guilty watching anything I find enjoyable, for whatever reason - However I think the term ‘guilty pleasure’ is applied to literature or art of any type as a means of saying, We “Experts” decree this material lowbrow or trivial … in other words, snobbery or elitism.
I wouldn’t recommend watching any of your favs with wives, girlfriends, partners etc … as a former girlfriend of mine, used to love winding me up, by saying how boring ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ was … even though she’d never seen more than a few clips - She did however make a point of sitting through ‘Viva Django’ aka ‘Prepare the Coffin’, criticising every scene … that’s making someone feel guilty, which is another matter. Now an ex- girlfriend! LOL :rofl:

Oh my Gooood. This a nightmare.

Yes, correct. Or whoever outside the fandom.

New top 20

1.For a Few Dollars More
2.The Big Gundown
3.The Great Silence
4.The Good,The Bad & The Ugly
5.Once Upon a Time in the West
6.Cemetery Without Crosses
7.A Fistful of Dollars
8.Bandidos
9.Face to Face
10.$10.000 For a Massacre
11.The Bounty Killer
12.The Mercenary
13.If You Meet Sartana, Pray for Your Death
14.Pistoleros
15.Companeros
16.The Return of Ringo
17.El Puro
18.Day of Anger
19.Minnesota Clay
20.Vengeance

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Always nice to see Vengeance in someone’s top 20.

Old controversial top with H8 in - after this list was posted, nothing was ever the same:

Revised Top, I also rewatched Sonny and Jed and thought why the hell I don’t have it in Top:

  1. GBU
  2. The Great Silence
  3. The Silent Stranger
  4. The Specialists
  5. Companeros
  6. Long Live Your Death
  7. Ace High
  8. The Stranger Returns
  9. The Moment To Kill
  10. Sonny and Jed
  11. Boots Hill
  12. California
  13. Blindman
  14. Django Kill!
  15. Face To Face
  16. Fistful Of Lead
  17. The Mercenary
  18. Drummer Of Vengeance
  19. Keoma
  20. Get Mean

I hope you don’t think I’m criticising anything you do or think or say (I do not even dare to criticize you for not having El puro [the EL PURO] anymore in your top 20, and that is rather insane), and so I’m only a tiny bit curious, I hope you can forgive me, but how comes that Un Dollari tra i denti, which formerly was on #10, and which is now replaced by S & J (your new # 10), is now not on say e.g. # 11, but instead completely out, while most of the others beneath # 10 are still on the same positions?

Well, I recently rewatched Un dolari tra i denti. I’d seen it eight or nine years ago last time. I still love it now, but slower middle part, although featuring Gia Sandri in a dominatrix role, is just too slow and repetitive for my taste. Also music is the weakest of the Stranger movies. So, my opinion about the movie slightly changed. I would give it 4 out of 5. So it went down and out of TOP 20. My recent rewatch of S & J, viewed lastly five six years ago, told me, that this movie could fit the new free position quite accurately.