Original poster artwork · Great Cinema Master List
Spoiler-free premise
Three gunslingers pursue a fortune in buried gold during the American Civil War.
Read expanded premiseLonger, still spoiler-free+
During the American Civil War, bounty hunter Blondie, outlaw Tuco, and gunman Angel Eyes each learn part of the location of buried Confederate gold. Their shifting alliances carry them through prison camps and battlefields toward the same cemetery.
Why it belongs
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly reinvents the western through monumental widescreen composition, operatic editing, mythic characterization, and Ennio Morricone’s inseparable score.
Read expanded why it belongsThe fuller editorial case+
Leone stretches the Western through widescreen landscapes, extreme close-ups, abrupt changes of scale, and Morricone's voices and instruments, building to a three-way standoff whose tight editing and charged eyelines make stillness explosively tense.
Major award wins
No verified wins in this six-institution crosswalk.
Awards are reference metadata only · zero points in 40/40/20
Good for
Film Club
Descriptive guidance derived from rating, genre, runtime, mood, and GCML scores.
Institutional reference ranks
Sight & Sound169IMDb Top 25010AFI 100—
Reference metadata only · not part of the 40/40/20 score
Great Cinema Master List scores
Greatness9.5
Engagement9.4
Ease8.2
Italian · Not Rated Narrative Feature Mood: Gripping
