Once Upon a Time in the West (Batıda Kan Var)

Sergio Leone's 1968 Italian-American epic spaghetti Western C'era una volta il West (Once Upon a Time in the West) unfolds around the brutal struggle for land in the path of an advancing railroad. Frank, a ruthless hired gun working for a railroad magnate, massacres settler Brett McBain and his family. Brett's new bride Jill McBain arrives from New Orleans to find a funeral instead of a home, yet refuses to abandon the farm. Standing against Frank, she gains two unlikely protectors: the good-natured outlaw Cheyenne and Harmonica, a taciturn stranger whose ever-present harmonica signals an old, personal score to settle with Frank. Henry Fonda plays against type as the villainous Frank, opposite Charles Bronson as Harmonica, Jason Robards as Cheyenne and Claudia Cardinale as Jill. The screenplay by Leone and Sergio Donati was built on a story devised with Bernardo Bertolucci and Dario Argento, with a celebrated score by Ennio Morricone. A box-office triumph in Europe, the film flopped in a shortened 1969 American release, but is now regarded as a masterpiece and one of the finest Westerns ever made, earning a place in the US National Film Registry in 2009.