Top 20+ Spaghetti Westerns...that weren't directed by Sergio Leone

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The psychedelia of 'Easy Rider' and the existentialism of 'Two-Lane Blacktop' as a western with the insanity level on both charts cranked up to 11.

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'Cutthroats 9' is basically survival horror. A group of prisoners (rotten, all of them) have to find their way through a hostile environment (forests, rocks and snow rather than sand and sun). In the middle of this a young woman, one of the prisoners loves her and is protective of her, the others are more the rapist types... The rawness, harshness and nihilism of this did for me what I suppose 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' or 'Cannibal Holocaust' must have done for many people. Technically a very flawed film but this often enhanced the feeling of raw intensity. Nevertheless there are some nice directorial touches throughout.

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The first 30 minutes of 'Johnny Hamlet' might be the most inspired in all of Spaghetti Western. The movie opens with a misty nightmare scene that immediately let's you feel the mindset of the war-struck antihero. He awakens by an actor reciting Shakespeare with the chosen text being very appropriate. After that we get a scene of Johnny finding his father's grave which is on a cemetery in a cave. The scene has a surreal feel to it and impresses with its moving camera. Then he comes home to his mother after having been away fighting in war for two years to find her having a jolly hot time with his uncle, Johnny's father's brother. Johnny is understandably flabbergasted learning that his father got killed and finding his mom living together with his uncle all on the same day. After that Johnny meets his old flame who got married while he was away. When asking her what she knows about the killing of his father she refuses to talk, out of fear apparently. That's when two guy shows up advising Johnny not to ask so many questions and a fistfight ensues. Johnny is saved by an old friend (and a good friend of his father's) who's a tough guy and enjoys this kind of thing.

And that's how this thing starts. Yes, it's an adaption of Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'. Not only is this revenge story like made for a Spaghetti Western but the film doesn't even struggle with the complex source material. The directing is inspired and clever (in those first 30 minutes I was especially impressed by the prevailing theme of melancholy) but beyond anything else it is well-written. Instead of feeling constructed the plot development feels remarkably natural with the individual characters simply following their own interests. Nevertheless this is a Spaghetti Western through and through with everything we've come to expect from films of this subgenre, including shootouts and a fine score. A bit of Spaghetti Western routine sets in after the magnificent beginning and while the action is merely competent the film thanks to its writing nevertheless manages to stay interesting until the showdown.

It's an extremely well-working mix of low-brow and high-brow cinema, if you will, with elements that fans of only low-brow cinema would call "artsy". 'Johnny Hamlet' is not only a new Spaghetti Western favorite but even an unexpected Shakespeare adaption favorite. If you are a fan of both of those "genres" I reckon this is a must-see.

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Ruthlessly pursued by the Rogers family following a dispute over cattle, Ben Caine (Benito Stefanelli) is chased back to the Caine Ranch. Despite his wife Maria's (Michèle Mercier) desperate pleading, the Rogers family hangs Ben Caine, forcing Maria to watch. Consumed with revenge but finding her two brothers-in-law reluctant to assist, Maria enlists the help of Manuel (Robert Hossein). Manual, presumably preoccupied with the past, wears a single black glove and lives alone in a ghost town. Manuel agrees to Maria's plan with reluctance, in part because of his deep feelings/attraction to her. Manuel finds employment as foreman at the Rogers' ranch and surreptitiously kidnaps Pa Rogers' (Daniele Vargas) only daughter Johanna (Anne-Marie Balin). With Johanna as the bait, Maria will be in the perfect position to exact her revenge on the Rogers but things don't turn out quite as planned.

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Nero, the sheriff of a border town, heads for Mexico to settle an old score: as a boy he has witnessed how his father was killed by a Mexican. In his quest for revenge, he is accompanied by his younger brother. The man they’re looking for has become a local tyrant, but the plot thickens when he turns out to be the younger brother’s father as well . While the younger brother is locked up by his father, Nero is escorted back to where he came from, but at the border his escort is attacked by a lawyer-turned-revolutionary and his men, who are about to march against the oppressor ...

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The film tells the story of a Spanish soldier (Nero), who falls in love with a gypsy (Aumont) only to end up deserting the army and being chased into the border lands, where he joins the gypsy smugglers to rob money for a journey to America. But it turns out his love has a husband (Kinski) and is only using him again and again.... The film is being marketed as a Spaghetti Western in Germany, where it is being retitled as a Django movie. The german dub therefore makes the film sound like a typical western, with talk of El Paso and Mexico instead of Spain. The german dub is atrocious. The film's typical western elements though, make the scheme work to some extent.

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Jonathan Corbett (Lee van Cleef), a bounty hunter, is assigned to follow Cuchillo (Tomas Milian) who has allegedly committed a rape. A rich landowner encourages Corbett, who hopes to help Corbett stand for senator once he has succeeded in his quest. Corbett embarks on a manhunt through Texas and Mexico, staying on Cuchillo's tail. Corbett catches him, and Cuchillo escapes. During the course of the deadly hunt, Corbett's doubts about the manhunt grow. When the landowner shows up in Mexico to put an end to the business, the landowner confirms Corbett's suspicion. Something is amiss and only a showdown will suffice when everything comes to light.

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Ted Barnett escapes prison to prove his innocence and seeks vengeance against a Mr. Cobb who is responsible.

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Django (Franco Nero) rides into a town controlled by two rival factions: a gang of racist KKK types wearing red hoods and a gang of gold hungry Mexicans. In Fistful of Dollars style, Django plays both gangs against each other in an attempt to get money and possibly revenge. Django's motivations for his actions are left vague throughout, although several possibilities are hinted at.

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After witnessing a brutal massacre, the legendary hero Sartana is ready to do some investigating. Almost everyone in the tiny town of Indian Creek seems eager to buy up the property left behind by the murder victims, and one of them could well be behind the killings. The sheriff himself is not above suspicion, so Sartana must uncover the culprit all on his own.

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Tony Anthony (which you may know as the titular character of 'Blindman') probably is the most feminine of all SW anti-heroes, and still one of the coolest. He's just so damn relaxed that the coolness comes naturally, there's little of that typical affectation on his part. He is a slouch, stoic but not stilted, he's wearing a pink shirt, has bleached blond hair and there's no sign of any homophobic tendencies (when he shoots a baddie who falls into his lap he doesn't react with either irony or macho behaviour to ensure us how masculine he is). After he got beat up badly he rescues a woman who later wordlessly rides on a horse with him on the back of the horse and her in front, him holding on to her hips to not fall off, but not in any sexual way. In the sequel, 'The Stranger Returns', he's even carrying around a parasol for much of the running time. I find it funny that its movie poster even asks the question: "Is he interested in women?"

Despite all that he's a real badass who most of the time is unquestionably more skilled and smarter than any of his enemies. There's no doubt he'll prevail in the end and we still care, we'd even care if he hadn't been beaten up (see sequel), which is a scene that most SWs have to make us care about our anti-hero because most viewers tend not to care about characters who have the upper hand all of the time. It's worth to note that Tony Anthony more than most stars of a movie not only shapes his own character but apparently the films as a whole as a producer and writer. Ever since this film he always starred in the movies he played in, that guy wouldn't play second fiddle to anyone.

Dialogue in the film is EXTREMELY sparse, although it doesn't have more action than your average SW. After the first 15 minutes there is a section in the film that is the most essential to the plot and it has the most dialogue. Cut away that 10-minute section and the complete dialogue adds up to maybe 20 lines. The main music theme rocks melancholically and is catchy, arguably it's a bit overused, but this never bothers me in a film if the tune is good. The additional score arrangements are also effective but the film doesn't shy away from silent sections either. Certainly there's nothing special about the film (except that it WORKS), it's just a lot of cool fun. Every bit as good as the surprisingly enjoyable sequel.

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A mysterious, vengeful stranger rides into town and creates all sorts of havoc in this spaghetti western. It seems there are a number of people on his list and before he metes out justice to each one, he places a cross with that person's name on it in the middle of the street. The burning question becomes whether these people are dealing with a one man army of flesh and blood or an avenging angel of death.

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The Stranger happens across a murdered postal inspector and a gang of bandits set on a prize of stolen gold which should be transported in a stagecoach. The Stranger, a sharpshooter named En plein and a treacherous postal agent try to get their hands on the gold.

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After ten years of forced labour, for a crime he never committed, Gary Hamilton is pardoned. The man who framed him, Acombar, has become a local tyrant, who pays an army of gunmen to protect him. A tornado is gathering when Hamilton approaches Acombar town, and the gunmen who are waiting for him are blinded by the dust raised by the heavy winds. Hamilton uses the network of underground galleries from an Indian graveyard to stalk his enemies and kill them one by one, most of them in gruesome fashion, helped by some of the town’s people who hate Acombar.

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A gunfighter and a karate master seek a treasure from clues that are tattooed on the backsides of 4 ladies.

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This Spaghetti Western - a genre that famously tends to be a very immoral one - concerns itself with questions of morality in a similar fashion to 'Faccia a Faccia'. In essence it's about a criminal gang leader (Tomas Milian) who escaped from prison and who is now chased by a bounty hunter. That bounty hunter knows that Milian will visit a certain town, a town where the Milian grew up as a boy and where he has people who know the now-criminal as a good boy who had it rough (his parents were killed when he was 15) so they make it very difficult for the bounty hunter to fulfill his task and collect his reward. In fact one of them, an old childhood friend (see screenshot) helps Milian escape in the first place.

But the townspeople's opinion of their "good boy" slowly changes as they witness his ruthlessness and sadism, first against the bounty hunter whom he captures with the help of the townspeople and then against the townspeople themselves when he and his gang ravish one of the shops in town and he shoots a young lad for trying to leave town out of fear that he would ride to the next town to let the sheriff know about the criminal's whereabouts. Milian - not being stupid - puts on an act in hope to make the people believe that inside he's still the good boy they came to know and love but his deeds speak for itself so slowly but surely they change sides with the inevitable fatal end for Milian.

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Trinity and Bambino repeatedly help out a poor family of protestant settlers (they wanted to rob in the first place), and eventually defend a monastery against a group of gun runners from both sides of the border.

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Django has become a bounty hunter who is asked to chase a villain who has kidnapped a young girl, but because he is not offered enough money, he decides to join forces with the bandit. But he’s double-crossed by the ruthless villain, who also kills the woman he was about to marry. Once again Django will have to take revenge ...

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During the height of the Mexican revolution a gang of bandits led by "El Chuncho" (Gian Maria Volonte) are stealing weapons and selling them on to the revolutions leader "General Elias" to aid the cause. During an attack the bandits are making on an armed train, the gang are unexpectedly helped by one of its passengers, the gringo "Bill Tate" (Lou Castel) who kills the driver and stops the train. "Tate" convinces the bandits he is a wanted man facing a death sentence in America. "Chuncho" takes an immediate liking to the young gringo and the gang agree to him joining them. The bandits weapon stealing exploits are greatly improved with the gringo aboard and the friendship between him and "Chuncho" grows. But unknown to the bandits "Bill Tate" has another agenda, one which will take him to the heart of the revolution and "General Elias" himself.

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This 1967 spaghetti western stars a master of that genre, Lee Van Cleef, as an aging gunfighter. In an effort to regain his fearsome reputation, Van Cleef shoots down a local Sheriff. He then finds he must deal with his young protégé, Giuliano Gemma, who happened to be the Sheriff's best friend. The climactic showdown finds Van Cleef facing down his former pupil, Gemma, with each man knowing the other's every move and thought. Also known as Day of Anger, this superior Italian oater was directed by onetime Sergio Leone assistant, Tonino Valerii.

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Franco Nero plays Keoma, a half-Indian, who returns home from the Civil War. He discovers that the town nearby is plague ridden and unscrupulous Donald O'Brian types are using this as an excuse to keep the town under their tyranical control. Keoma rescues a pregnant woman from being sent to the camp with all the plague victims, which makes him somewhat unpopular with the town's more evil elements. In addition, he comes into conflict with his brothers who are siding with the aforementioned evil elements.

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During the Mexican revolution mine owner Colonel Alfonso Garcia (Eduardo Fajardo) hires Sergei Kowalski (Franco Nero) a Polish mercenary to protect seven tonnes of silver being transported to the US. Kowalski arrives only to discover the repressed peasant workers, led by Paco Roman (Tony Musante), have taken control of the mine by force. Always eager to make good his losses Kowalski persuades Roman, now in a tight spot with Garcia's army bearing down on him, to hire his services. A sadistic homosexual mercenary called Curly (Jack Palance), wanting the silver himself tries to ambush Kowalski, but Roman thwarts his plans and Curly's men are killed. Kowalski renews his partnership with Roman and after liberating a town the bandits are joined by Columba (Giovanna Ralli) an idealist who's farther was hung for being a revolutionary. With the promise of making Roman as famous as Pancho Villa and all the gang rich in exchange for a hefty daily fee plus expenses, under Kowalski's guidance Roman earns the reputation of a great revolutionary liberator. Garcia's army still desperate to capture the bandits are joined by Curly in their search. Kowalski's financial demands for guidance increase but Roman now married to Columbia sees the true importance of the revolution to the Mexican people. Realising his responsibility for his fellow countrymen Roman reneges on the deal and takes all Kowalski's money for the great cause. The bandits keep Kowalski tied up as a prisoner, but in a devastating attack by Garcia's army he escapes. Kowalski tracks Roman to a rodeo where he is in hiding working as a clown, Curly also trails him there and the scene is set for the final showdown.

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Gianni Garko and Claudio Camaso are half-brothers on opposite sides of the law. One, a bounty hunter, the other, a deserter turned outlaw. The one thing they have in common is their shared hatred of each other which reaches back to their family background. John was in prison after being falsely accused by Clint for killing his father.