For a Few Dollars More

Leone's second dollars film, and the one where the formula locks into place. Two bounty hunters, one young and mercenary, one older with a hidden reason, reluctantly team up to take down a psychotic bandit, and the older man's motive is the film's slow-burning heart.

Lee Van Cleef arrives and the series gains gravity. The final duel, timed to a chiming pocket watch and Morricone's cue, is the first fully realised version of the operatic standoff Leone would perfect.

Bigger, richer and more confident than the first. The middle panel of a masterpiece.