Tarantino's list is a starting point for exploring different forms of the European western, not a canon that closes the conversation.
Which list we are using
In January 2009, during the filming of Inglourious Basterds at Babelsberg, Quentin Tarantino gave Sebastian Haselbeck a selection of twenty spaghetti westerns for The Spaghetti Western Database. The publication identifies the meeting and presents the preferences as a personal list. That context allows us to use it precisely: it captures a judgement from that moment, not a definitive ranking that Tarantino has promised to keep for ever.
This overview takes five titles from that selection: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, For a Few Dollars More, Django, A Fistful of Dollars and The Big Gundown. The observations that follow are a viewing guide to those films. They should not be confused with remarks Tarantino is known to have made about each one. The inclusion is documented; the analysis then allows us to compare their differences.
Variety matters because the Italian western is not reduced to a lone gunman, a dry landscape and a recognisable tune. It can be organised around a professional partnership, revenge, a revolution or a pursuit in which the culprit's identity is less clear than it first seemed. Changing the aim also transforms the meaning of violence and the hero's relationship with those around him.
Leone and Corbucci: from calculation to political conflict
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, by Sergio Leone, headed the list. The search for treasure allows alliances to change without the need to collaborate disappearing. Each protagonist has information, skills or advantages the others need. Suspense arises from that uneven distribution: knowing more at one moment does not guarantee retaining control in the next.
The scale of the American Civil War introduces a decisive contrast with private interest in money. The characters move through a conflict that goes beyond their aims, and the adventure cannot be entirely insulated from it. The viewer can enjoy individual cunning while observing a world in which collective destruction makes many private calculations seem small. The film holds those two scales together without turning them into identical experiences.
For a Few Dollars More offers another entry into Leone. The relationship between two bounty hunters combines competition and recognition. Attention to rituals, pauses and objects allows a dispute to gain meaning before it is settled with a gunshot. It is a good choice for observing how the genre can tell its story through the length of a look or the wait for an answer.
In Django, by Sergio Corbucci, the material world changes. The mud, the worn surfaces and the violence done to bodies create a less polished experience of adventure. Franco Nero's figure retains the appeal of the hero, but the setting seems determined to degrade any possibility of grandeur. The film works as a contrast, not as Leone repeated with a different actor.
A Fistful of Dollars and The Big Gundown
A Fistful of Dollars, also by Corbucci and known as The Mercenary, introduces a relationship between revolution and paid work. Military experience can be bought, but those who hire or receive that help do not necessarily understand the struggle in the same way. The conflict between commitment and self-interest provides a different energy from individual revenge. A useful alliance can contain, from the outset, a difference that is hard to resolve.
The spectacle makes it possible to observe that tension without reducing it to an exchange of ideas. The characters' positions, their access to resources and their ability to make decisions show who depends on whom. The film can combine humour and violent confrontations because the central relationship allows both complicity and mistrust. The tone shifts with the distribution of power, not only with the arrival of a new action scene.
The Big Gundown, by Sergio Sollima and known internationally as The Big Gundown, organises its journey around a pursuit. Lee Van Cleef and Tomas Milian embody a relationship in which the apparent initial clarity must be tested. The pursuer's skill does not guarantee that the information he receives is reliable. Following a fugitive can also force him to revise the system that told him whom to pursue.
Objects are another way of comparing them: a watch, a coffin or a sum of money can hold a previous story and change value when we discover who needs them and why.
For a first approach, you can begin with Leone, move on to the harsh world of Django and then compare the conflicts in A Fistful of Dollars and The Big Gundown. That order is an editorial suggestion. The usefulness of Tarantino's list lies in opening routes between directors and forms of adventure, not in replacing the viewer's taste. Once the films have been seen, their differences make it possible to decide which line is worth continuing: the precision of the duel, the hero's fragility or the relationship between violence, money and power.
See Tarantino's selection of recommendations by genre.