Who else agrees that this is better than TGTBATU???

Just rewatched this and have to agree it's better than TGTBATU.

They each have their strengths, TGTBATU has Eli Wallach in a classic role and has some very epic moments. And nothing beats that final showdown over the gold.

But FAFDM is lean and mean, a nice ~2 hour running time with perfect pacing, great acting, great music, and one of the all time best team-ups with Clint and Lee Van Cleef. And Volante is just incredible as Indio, the best villain of the trilogy. It's also surprisingly funny with lots of dark humor.

Leone was a great director, revolutionized the Western, and was hugely influential to movies to come, but I feel like he started to get a little over-indulgent starting with TGTBATU, even more so in his later films.

People always use the ~3 hour runtime of GB&U as a "con" but never once during that runtime did I ever feel bored. I'll agree that yes, I don't always have the time to watch a 3 hour movie but assuming that's not a factor, a long runtime shouldn't be viewed as a negative if the movie is actually worthy of that time.

I think it was Ebert who said that a good movie can never be too long and a bad movie can never be too short.

In any case, I think Fistful of Dollars and For a Dew Dollars More are both great westerns, but The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly is a masterpiece.

...it depends...upon whether i have a free 2 hours and 12 minutes to spare or 2 hours and 45 minutes....


Josey Wales...most definitely tops them all.

Hands down. The best of the trilogy by a large margin.

I like this one a lot. The others are enjoyable, especially the third, but they require a lot of time to watch. This one is lean and mean and not too complicated, which is what I want from a western.