Top 5: Sergio Leone

1. Once Upon A Time In The West

Leone threw a curve ball from the poncho-wearing nameless-one to direct this showboat opera piece of violence and fading frontiers. Sure, it's not an airy light hearted horse-trotting western involving the sheriff and his merry men clonking off into the distant sunset like galloping herds of turd, but things of beauty rarely are.

Instead, the film plays out like the wise old man squinting at the world through the bottom of his whiskey glass, guarding his words like they're the only thing worth giving a damn over anymore.

So if the eye-gazing foreplay and the thick to thin length to dialogue ratio doesn't induce cold sweats in you, it's a must viewing.



2. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Elli Wallach's perfomance as the mother-cursing starpin sleazeball is the mantlepiece role of the trio. Fact.

3. For A Few Dollars More

4. Once Upon A Time In America

Leone took a break from slugging it out in the desert sand to throw his hat into the gangster genre ring. And my, did he throw it in with some force.

5. For A Fistful Of Dollars