Prep School: Ten Films You Should Watch Before Django Unchained

8. Once Upon A Time In The West (1968)

Many consider Sergio Leone’s last western to be his best effort in the genre, though he tones down the goofy humor that embodies his other spaghetti westerns and turns in a soaring operatic masterpiece. Once Upon A Time In The West takes its time developing its story, inching slowly (but surely) through remarkable sequences of beauty, sadness and sudden violence, each one rendered with painstaking attention to detail.

Never was Leone’s camera used to such effect in telling this tale of a former prostitute who comes into contact with three men – a mysterious drifter, a railroad baron and an outlaw. The remarkable thing about Once Upon A Time In The West is that it was constructed in exactly the same way that Tarantino constructs his own movies today: using bits and pieces from other flicks. The entire plot takes its lines of dialogue, set pieces and motifs from westerns that Leone admired.