6. The Hateful Eight (2015)
It’s a bit of a shame that this mean, rowdy and wickedly fun genre pastiche scored by Ennio Morricone tends to get a bad rap among Tarantino-heads and is unfairly dismissed as bottom-of-the-barrel lightwork when weighed unfavorably against the rest of the heavy-hitters in the famed director’s catalog.
Clocking in at three hours and 8 minutes, “The Hateful Eight” may be nowhere near as cohesive or drum-tight plot-wise as, say, “Pulp Fiction” or “Inglourious Basterds”, but this chamber drama about a bunch of foul-mouthed badasses squaring off and killing each other in a secluded log cabin near Wyoming grabs you by the throat and never lets go. If you’re looking for a film that ticks off all of Tarantino’s itches and trademark obsessions, look no further: Loathsome characters, snappy dialogue, gruesome violence, non-linear narrative jumps, and whiplash tonal shifts abound as we watch a bunch of ne’er-do-well, trigger-friendly bounty hunters double and triple-cross each other while sitting out a raging blizzard.
Tarantino has a rather spotless track record when it comes to coaxing out career-best work from his stacked ensembles, and you can just tell by watching Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Tim Roth, Walton Goggins, Michael Madsen and Jennifer Jason Leigh that everyone involved is having a blast.
7. The Mercenary (1968)
After launching himself onto the world stage two years prior with the superb “Django”, Franco Nero joined forces once again with legendary Italian director Sergio Corbucci to fully cement his burgeoning reputation as an immortal global icon of stoic masculinity and all-around badassery with this lean, mean 1968 Zapata western.
In “The Mercenary”, Nero oozes ice-cool charm and steely confidence as the titular Polish gun-for-hire Sergei Kowalski, who rides into town and decides to team up with an idealistic Zapata bandit (Tony Mustante) in the midst of the Mexican revolution to teach him the intricacies of war and also get his fair share of the profits and war spoils.
A personal favorite of Quentin Tarantino, this is the perfect showcase for a star with huge on-screen presence and a knack for playing morally ambiguous, slippery anti-heroes that could muster all your attention with little to no dialogue and wipe out an entire room of henchmen without breaking a sweat. Plus, leave it to Corbucci to pit Nero against Tony Musante’s smooth-talking guerrilla general and mine their live-wire chemistry for plenty of laughs.
8. Blazing Saddles (1974)
Raise your hand if you’ve heard this tired-old critical truism semi-recently: There’s simply no way Mel Brooks would possibly get wildly irreverent 1970s Western spoof greenlit by a major studio in our day and age — let alone make it the top grossing movie of the year with over $100 million collected to boot.
A modern perspective might consider certain aspects about the “Blazing Saddles”’ tonal highwire act dated — in fact, HBO recently felt compelled to dump an intro disclaimer to the film — but truth be told, one barely needs to be the sharpest tool in the shed to enjoy Brooks’ raunchy humor and transgressive gags while understanding the underlying progressive themes of race prejudice and political corruption he obviously plays on.
After all, there’s a reason why this fourth-wall-breaking western riff about a resourceful Black ex-con (Cleavon Little) who arrives to town to take over as sheriff and prove both the ignorant local white folk and corrupt governor wrong became a smash hit and is still mentioned today in the same breath as other time-tested comedy classics in Mel Gibson’s catalog as “Spaceballs” and “Young Frankenstein”. Political correctness be damned, watching Little and Gene Wilder light up the scenery and perfectly play off one another is virtually guaranteed to lighten your mood and put a smile on your face.
9. The Good, the Bad, and the Weird (2008)
Not to be mistaken with the iconic 1968 Sergio Leone masterpiece that it takes its title and main narrative beats from, “The Good, the Bad, and the Weird” tells the story of a ragtag trio of Korean outlaws (including scene-stealing fan favorite Song Kang-ho) in a race against time with the Japanese army and Chinese bandits to locate the whereabouts of buried treasure in 1930s Manchuria.
South Korea probably isn’t the first (not the second or even third either) country that springs to mind when talking about all things Western, but expert thriller craftsman Kim Jee-woon (“A Bittersweet Life”) manages to tow the line between lighthearted homage, slapstick humor and edge-of-your-seat thrills without a hitch in his first ever foray into the genre.
Fun, off-kilter, and a shade absurd, come for the knockout performances, jaw-dropping action set pieces, and watch out for the constant onslaught of cheeky nods and loving homages pilfered from Sergio Leone’s Dollars Trilogy (oh, and make sure you steer clear of the butchered international cut of the film and go with the full 130-minute version instead).
10. Companeros (1970)
Franco Nero looms over the proceedings in Sergio Corbucci’s unabashedly fun rehash of 1968s “The Mercenary” (listed above), not as a Polish bounty hunter anymore but instead as an unscrupulous Swede arms dealer with a similar goal of profiting from the Mexican Revolution war by aiding some desperate Zapata revolutionaries (including the easily lovable Tomas Millian) to liberate villages and free a pacifist Marxist professor who has the code to open a bank safe.
Lighter in tone and higher in gag-for-gag hit rate as its pulpy predecessor but just as gnarly and action-packed, “Companeros” is everything one could ask for in a spaghetti western: From colorful characters, breathtaking set pieces and iconic heavies (most notably Jack Palance as a dope-smoking American scoundrel with a wooden arm and a falcon companion). Have we mentioned the absolute killer soundtrack by Ennio Morricone (arguably in contention as being one of his very best and criminally underrated) yet? And if for some reason all of that isn’t enough to pique your interest, rest assured: Franco Nero does go berserk with his machine gun at some point as one would expect.