For a brief moment of time, largely during the 1960s, Italian spaghetti westerns shot across the international cinematic sky, making luminaries of directors like Sergio Leone and jump-starting Clint Eastwood's feature career. One of the most celebrated of these films was Sergio Corbucci's 1968 "The Great Silence," an epic with an eclectic cast — France's Jean-Louis Trintignant, Germany's Klaus Kinski and, making her big-screen debut, America's Vonetta McGee — and a formidable reputation.

Quentin Tarantino, for one, counts Corbucci in general and this film in particular as major influences. His "The Hateful Eight" has a snowy setting similar to this film's and his "Django Unchained" was inspired by Corbucci's 1966 "Django."