- Year
- 1964
- Country
- Italy · Spain · West Germany · USA
- Runtime
- 99 min
- Director
- Sergio Leone
- Updated
- 9 Aug 2026
- Obscurity
- canon (0/100)
- Also known as
- A Fistful of Dollars
A Fistful of Dollars
An unlicensed Yojimbo remake. Toho sued and won. Started everything.
The film that started it, and an unlicensed remake of Kurosawa's Yojimbo, which Toho successfully sued over. A nameless drifter rides into a border town split between two criminal families and plays them against each other for profit, and Clint Eastwood becomes a star doing almost nothing.
Sergio Leone strips the American western of its decency and its heroes, keeps the iconography and the Morricone score, and invents a whole genre in the process. It cost very little and made a fortune.
Rougher than what followed, and the foundation of everything on this shelf.
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