Once Upon a Time in the West

Leone slows everything down until the western becomes ritual. A harmonica-playing stranger, a railroad baron, a widow and a bandit converge on a patch of desert with water under it, and the film takes its enormous time getting them there.

Henry Fonda, cast against a lifetime of decency, plays a child-killer in the opening scene and never recovers your sympathy. Morricone wrote the themes before shooting and Leone cut to them, which is why the film feels scored into its bones.

His masterpiece, and the elegy for the whole genre.