A Fistful of Dollars Reviews

A Fistful of Dollars is not quite as good as The Good, The Bad and The Ugly from the Three Dollars trilogy(or Once Upon a Time in America and Once Upon a Time in the West), and I also think the film that inspired it Kurosawa's Yojimbo is the superior film. That said, that is not down-grading A Fistful of Dollars in any way, it is still a truly great film. As with all Leone's it is incredibly well made, the scenery is epic and looks gorgeous and the extreme close ups really helps to enhance the unrelenting violence. Ennio Morricone's score is wonderful with its minimalist style really fitting with the movie. The story is both elegiac which helps to give that feel of mystery to the Man with No Name's character and thrilling with the violence and the camera work. Leone's direction is as ever superb, as is the acting. Clint Eastwood became an international superstar and you can see why, he oozes charisma and his idea to make The Man with No Name mysterious with minimal dialogue proved to be a great one. Of the supporting cast, Gian Maria Volonte is especially impressive, as Ramon he snarls very convincingly. All in all, a great film. 9/10 Bethany Cox

A Fistful of Dollars sees Sergio Leone first dips into the Spaghetti Western, and his first teaming with Clint Eastwood. It is to watch Leone’s later operatic, stylistic obsessions and choices to be in their embryonic form. It is to watch Eastwood’s film persona being hammered into place and his movie star charisma coming into full bloom. Sure, the plot is purely recycled from Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, which was already heavily borrowed from Dashiell Hammett’s great noir novel Red Harvest, but A Fistful of Dollars is a loose remake done right.

It may not quite hold its own weight next to sprawling masterpieces like Once Upon a Time in the West or The Good, the Bad & the Ugly, but it’s still a damn good time. The extreme close-ups, the dirt and grit in every frame, the poetic expressions of violence, the long-silence punctuated by loud gun shots, the Ennio Morricone score that haunts every moment – all of Leone’s genius is here. And if you’re interested in pure expressions of cinema, films which alternate between wide panoramas and tightly framed faces, Leone’s oddball westerns are a great deal of joy to behold.

These are Westerns beamed in from another planet, keener on providing expressionistic shots of wide landscapes and punctured by operatic displays of emotions and goofy sidekicks that pose as comic relief. Standing in the center of Leone’s great, loosely entwined trilogy is Eastwood’s “Man with No Name.” His granite face and permanent squint are visual symbolizes that what we’re dealing with is a murky area in which there are no longer clear delineations between good and bad. Eastwood is pure anti-heroism, and the stoic yet ultimately decent heroes of John Wayne and Gary Cooper’s westerns are now things of the past.

When I was a kid, I have watched this movie many times with my father (I was probably way too young at the time but I thought it was really awesome). Years later, I would watch it again with Nick, my step-son, but, somehow, he didn’t connect with the whole thing. I think it may have had to do with the pacing as it was way too slow for him. In fact, when you think about it, maybe half of the movie is made of static close-ups of the actors and there were not so many action scenes after all. Basically, it is all about the mood and, personally, right from the opening credits with the awesome score by Ennio Morricone, I was getting some goose-bumps. The way I feel about this movie probably has to do with a little bit of nostalgia but, still, even 50 years later, the whole thing is really entertaining. Personally, I always had a hard time with Westerns, even the major classics starring John Wayne, but those directed by Sergio Leone are still pretty awesome, even after multiple re-watches. Of course, Clint Eastwood, in a star making performance, was completely bad-ass and combined with the inspired directing by Sergio Leone, they pretty much reinvented the whole genre. To conclude, it is a classic that every decent movie buff must watch at least once in their life.

A saga starts and anticipates too much talk on reciclying, copying, modern heroe cinicism and all about Clint.Eastwood goes eastbound,Volonte volunteers.

This film was a great start to Cint Eastwoods spaghetti western trilogy. I thought that this film was a really deadly one. This is the first film in my opinion that made Clint Eastwood famous. It was the absolutely fantastic setting and the amazing costume design that made me feel really good about this film. It was the scenes and it was the reality of the characters too.


The acting was absolutely fantastic from Clint Eastwood as the Man With No Name. I find that the Man With Not Name character isnt just really deadly and cool but he is a character that I find a really amusing character. Most of the characters in this film appear in The Good, The Bad And The Ugly which is the third and final of the trilogy.


The direction from Sergio Leone was an awesome start to a great trilogy. I find that Leone tries to adapt these three westerns into a film that Akira Kurosawa would do. His direction made the Man With No Name a true badass. I was impressed with the written screenplay too. It really makes it like a real kick ass and bad ass film. The thing that sort of disappointed me was that I dont think it was as action packed as I was hoping it would be.


This is not the best of the Spaghetti trilogy and is not the best of Clint Eastwood (as an actor). I liked this film but I do think that The Good, The Bad And The Ugly is a better film. That is the best western film ever made. I havent seen For A Few Dollars More yet which is the second in the trilogy so will find out whether it is better than A Fistful Of Dollars. This film is a good start to a great trilogy of epic western films and for one of the coolest film characters of all time.

I can remember watching this film when i was a young boy with my father and all the other spaghetti westerns