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1862, the American frontier: A ruggedly handsome man in a poncho and Cattleman cowboy hat slowly enters a cobble-stoned circle, surrounded by tilted gravestones, immersed in the dusty wild west. He is followed by two other men, who eye each other suspiciously. Two hundred thousand dollars in gold lay hidden under one of the gravestones around them....

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Among the pantheon of gangster movies, the Sergio Leone flick Once Upon a Time in America should be considered one of the very best, rubbing shoulders with other classics like Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather and Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas. The contemporary mastermind Quentin Tarantino certainly thinks so too, with the Leone lover often discussin...

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His son Andrea recounts: "Once Upon a Time in America was supposed to be called Once Upon a Time: America but my father said the title was too 'cocky.'" It took almost 40 years and a beautiful documentary film for us to realize that, at least on that occasion, Sergio Leone was too humble. And perhaps it is no coincidence that the title of the film...

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Few storytellers have shaped the modern American Western than, ironically, Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone, who approached the genre with an outsider's view and pioneered the Spaghetti Western. Unlike his predecessor John Ford, Leone portrayed his "heroes" as morally ambiguous and argued that survival and greed shaped the American frontier more than...

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Between the pore-rich tightness of his close-ups and the mysterious, patient grandeur of his landscapes, Sergio Leone took the Hollywood-forged myths that enraptured him as a child and created one of cinema’s most influential oeuvres. Considering Leone’s impact, from those sun-cooked, Ennio Morricone–scored westerns through the nostalgic sweep of h...

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Creators of timeless films, that will remain etched in the memory forever: Italy has seen the birth of some of the most important directors in the world. Linked by the common thread of Italian neorealism, let’s discover who are the most famous Italian directors of the twentieth century. Who are the most famous Italian directors of the twentieth cen...

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“I’m convinced that I created “Once upon a time in my cinema”, rather than “Once upon a time in America.” Who better than the director himself to enclose in a handful of words the deeper meaning of one of the most talked about films in the history of cinema?  “Once Upon a Time in America” was initially a flop, then re-evaluated by critics, especial...

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There’s really no understating the stardom of actor-turned-director Clint Eastwood beginning in the mid-’60s. After a tenure on the long-running TV series Rawhide and a few notable Hollywood movies, it took a stint in Italy to turn him into a megastar. Three films under director Sergio Leone changed his career forever; the films he made in the wake...

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Sergio Leone's work with Clint Eastwood changed the landscape of Westerns, as well as the landscape of world cinema. After the overwhelming success of 1964's A Fistful of Dollars, a new subgenre was born: The Spaghetti Western. The resulting films represent a now-gone era of stylish filmmaking. The Spaghetti Western differentiates itself from tradi...

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Winner of two Academy Awards, three Golden Globes and four Grammy Awards, Ennio Morricone, one of the greatest Italian composer and conductor, has given to the entire world an inestimable music heritage that will probably make the future generations remember him forever. His death, a few days ago, on the 6th of July, has left a big hole in the hear...

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