The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Name: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Genre: Adventure, Western
Released: December 29, 1967
Duration: 161 min
Rating: 90
Cast: Aldo Giuffrè, Claudio Scarchilli, Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Enzo Petito

1967

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Universal acclaim based on 7 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Universal acclaim based on 640 Ratings

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9.2

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9.2	User Score Universal acclaim based on 640 Ratings

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The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

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Movie Details & Credits

United Artists | Release Date: December 29, 1967 | R

Starring: Aldo Giuffrè, Claudio Scarchilli, Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Enzo Petito, John Bartha, Lee Van Cleef, Livio Lorenzon, Luigi Pistilli, Rada Rassimov

Summary: For three men the Civil War wasn't hell... it was practice! Clint Eastwood returns as "The Man with No Name," this time teaming with two gunslingers (Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach) to pursue a cache of $200,000 and letting no one, not even warring factions in a civil war, stand in their way. [MGM]

Director: Sergio Leone

Genre(s): Adventure, Western

Rating: R

Runtime: 161 min

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Metascore

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Critic Reviews

100

Dave Kehr

Though ordained from the beginning, the three-way showdown that climaxes the film is tense and thoroughly astonishing. Read full review

100

Sean Axmaker

There are two kinds of people, my friend. Those who love Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and those who resist the machismo and gallows humor of what is arguably the definitive spaghetti western. Read full review

100

Ty Burr

Gorgeously stoic art film. Read full review

100

Michael Wilmington

An improbable masterpiece -- a bizarre mixture of grandly operatic visuals, grim brutality and sordid violence that keeps wrenching you from one extreme to the other. Read full review

TV Guide Magazine Staff (Not Credited)

A massive, many-faceted film that continues to hold up, viewing after viewing. Read full review

Michael Atkinson

All told, and in giant widescreen, it's only blood-red adolescent fun, but it blooms like Douglas Sirk with a Gatling gun compared to the teenage demographic's current fare. Matrix, schmatrix: This is the season's supreme party movie. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

A curious amalgam of the visually striking, the dramatically feeble and the offensively sadistic. Read full review

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User Reviews

Sinews

Apr 10, 2020

So much runs through the viewer's mind during the climatic graveyard scene near the end The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. Somehow, through all we've have been put through for the last 3 hours, the brutality of America's bloodiest war, the many, many twists and turns that we've been putSo much runs through the viewer's mind during the climatic graveyard scene near the end The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. Somehow, through all we've have been put through for the last 3 hours, the brutality of America's bloodiest war, the many, many twists and turns that we've been put through, the highs and lows of the truly epic journey across America's sun-scorched, anarchic, savage bastard child west, nothing else matters besides what is going right now at this very instance. Despite Morricone's heavenly "Ecstasy of Gold" drumming everything, meaning the scene, its characters, the action, and the audience along, it's really a moment of restrained triumph, as Tuco the Ugly frantically gallops across this massive graveyard which more closely resembles some great Roman coliseum in search of the one thing that he could ever mean something to someone like him, some arbitrary object of gratification with which we, the audience, have had dangled in front of us for what feels like an eternity. Suddenly, the whir of excitement and triumph comes to a dead stop. The heavenly mariachi is silent now, and the almost spiritual catharsis which has briefly unified this character, this film, and this audience as one shared soul in search for something greater has finally hit a fever pitch from which words escape. The entire world has stopped and even the Heavens seem to have lent its undivided attention - Tuco has found the gold.

Somehow, despite Clint Eastwood's top-billing and his position firmly at the bottom of the film's title, Tuco scans as the main character of this affair. He sets the adventure in motion, he discovers the gold, and most importantly, he's the one we empathize with, the one we actually care about. Somehow, his greed, his wretchedness, his disregard for anything which could be considered ethical or cosmically important in any way do nothing to hinder our view of him as a sympathetic human being as deserving as anyone of just one moment of satisfaction. He suffers all throughout the movie as some creature who has never been loved or even tolerated by anybody else. He can't even get by for his own brother, who couldn't loathe him any more were he the devil himself. Like many of the greatest characters of the genre - Cormac McCarthy's Judge Holden, Jesse James, among others, he embodies the wild west in human form - an amoral force for chaos that we, against our better instincts, have qualities that we see in ourselves.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is the idealized west and it's also the grim, violent, bleak west. Its gorgeous landscapes that seem to melt like butter across the screen and then some and its gunslinging good guys and bad guys that we can't help but throw our weight behind are all present and accounted for, just as are the harsh, morbid realities that plagued real people that really existed and really felt at this time. It's this atmosphere, of grit and spit and grime and dirt and famine that make The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly as profoundly timeless as they are. This is no surprise coming from Sergio Leone, the man who could make riveting cinema out of 10 uninterrupted moments of three guys waiting for a train in the middle of a desert.

It should come as no surprise that among this film's many merits is the simple reality of just how ahead of its time this movie was. Its archetypes and arid, scenic backdrops aren't just present in modern fiction, they're almost the bread and butter of a well-told story. Star Wars, Red Dead Redemption, Blood Meridian, Grand Theft Auto, Pulp Fiction, Breaking Bad; just drops in the pan of the vast sum of works of fiction that almost certainly owe more than their fair share of inspiration to this film. We certainly don't love these settings and these characters because they bring out the best in us. There are absolutely no morals, no higher truths with which to ascribe to, and certainly very little compassion on display here. And yet, it would be a difficult position to defend that they bring out the worst in us either, being that they are able to get us to feel tremendously for the plight of even the most wretched characters and see some great redeeming power in the virtue of earnestness for earnestness's sake. Most accurately is that these stories simply bring out the most human in us, and that is the very essence of storytelling itself.… Expand

0 of 2 users found this helpful02

NF123

Aug 25, 2010

Honestly if you were to ask me what's my personal favorite movie, I'd have to say "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly". While the film does have a few lighthearted or comedic moments it's by enlarge extremely serious and deals with war in an admirably restrained manner. Sergio captures theHonestly if you were to ask me what's my personal favorite movie, I'd have to say "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly". While the film does have a few lighthearted or comedic moments it's by enlarge extremely serious and deals with war in an admirably restrained manner. Sergio captures the epicness and chaos of the old west but it doesn't choke itself to death on atmosphere. While I thought Leones own "Once upon a time in America" was his best work this comes in an extremely close second. It really does nothing wrong. One of the few films I could honestly call perfection… Expand

24 of 29 users found this helpful245

RDalvi

Jan 1, 2007

Superb and excellent. Cool humor and great action scenes. Could watch it any time and not get bored. Classic line by Eli Wallach-"if you wanna shoot, shoot don't talk."

1 of 1 users found this helpful

FilmVirtue

May 22, 2015

The work of art that redefined the era of spaghetti westerns still remains just as epic and enjoyable as it once stood the day it was released in 1966.

2 of 4 users found this helpful22

Shady313

Mar 22, 2015

10/10 ................................................................................................................................................

3 of 6 users found this helpful33

zNeverSleeping

Jul 24, 2020

Acredito que seja o filme mais fraco da trilogia, porém não deixa nada a desejar.

A trilha sonora é lendária. Toda trama envolvendo os três personagens é muito bem amarrada. Inclusive, gostei de darem mais tempo de tela aos outros senão Clint Eastwood. Não gostei muito da desconstrução doAcredito que seja o filme mais fraco da trilogia, porém não deixa nada a desejar.

A trilha sonora é lendária. Toda trama envolvendo os três personagens é muito bem amarrada. Inclusive, gostei de darem mais tempo de tela aos outros senão Clint Eastwood. Não gostei muito da desconstrução do "olhos da lei"x, que no segundo filme chamou muito minha atenção. Tuco tem uma personalidade bem peculiar, e seus momentos no filme são excelentes.… Expand

0 of 2 users found this helpful02

roysc

Apr 14, 2022

I respect that the film was ground-breaking and its day and is an important part of film history. But compared to modern works, for me, it does not have much going for it.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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