Rotten Tomatoes
Cancel Movies Tv shows FanStore News Showtimes

Sergio Leone

Highest Rated: 98% A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

Lowest Rated: 56% The Colossus of Rhodes (1961)

Birthday: Jan 3, 1929

Birthplace: Rome, Lazio, Italy

Often directly associated with the Spaghetti Western, director Sergio Leone was by no means the inventor of the sub-genre, but did more than any other Italian director to popularize it overseas, particularly in the United States. Leone entered filmmaking at the height of popularity for Sword-and-Sandal epics of the 1950s, making his solo directorial debut with "The Colossus of Rhodes" (1961). Once that genre fell out of favor over the massive budgets, he joined a group of Italian directors who reinvented the Western, turning the genre on its head with films that were gritty, violent and often darkly humorous. For his part, Leone employed a number of techniques like extreme close-ups, rapid-fire editing, punctuated score, and laconic characters in a trilogy of films - "A Fistful of Dollars" (1964), "For a Few Dollars More" (1966) and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (1967) - that reshaped the modern Western and turned a little-known actor named Clint Eastwood into a star. All three films were derided by critics for their then-excessive violence while also becoming major international box office hits. Leone followed with what many felt was his Western masterpiece, "Once Upon a Time in the West" (1968), and later spent over 10 years making his four-and-a-half hour long gangster epic, "Once Upon a Time in America" (1984). When he died in 1989, Leone left behind a legacy as a pioneering director whose influence was felt throughout generations while inspiring a permanent shift of the cultural landscape.

Show Less Show More

Highest rated movies

98% 91% A Fistful of Dollars
Watchlist
97% 97% The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Watchlist
96% 94% Once Upon a Time in the West
Watchlist
92% 84% A Fistful of Dynamite
Watchlist
92% 94% For a Few Dollars More
Watchlist
86% 93% Once Upon a Time in America
Watchlist
56% 30% The Colossus of Rhodes
Watchlist
We Stole a Tram
Watchlist
Pan del cielo
Watchlist
56% A Genius, Two Friends, and an Idiot
Watchlist

Filmography

Movies

Credit
No Score Yet 100% Sergio Leone: The Italian Who Invented America Self - 2022
No Score Yet No Score Yet Pan del cielo Annibale (Character) - 2018
No Score Yet No Score Yet Troppo forte Director - 1986
86% 93% Once Upon a Time in America Director,
Screenwriter
- 1984
No Score Yet 56% A Genius, Two Friends, and an Idiot Director,
Executive Producer
- 1975
92% 84% A Fistful of Dynamite Director,
Screenwriter
- 1971
96% 94% Once Upon a Time in the West Director,
Writer
- 1968
97% 97% The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Director,
Screenwriter
- 1966
92% 94% For a Few Dollars More Director,
Screenwriter
- 1965
98% 91% A Fistful of Dollars Director,
Screenwriter
- 1964
56% 30% The Colossus of Rhodes Director - 1961
No Score Yet 30% The Last Days of Pompeii Screenwriter - 1959
No Score Yet No Score Yet We Stole a Tram Presenter of the Contest (Character) - 1954