When Italian studios began to produce and distribute Western genre films in the 1960s, many critics quickly dismissed them as ultra-violent, nihilistic, and cheap knockoffs of the original American product. Despite this initial snub, the popularity of these “Spaghetti Westerns” would explode like a wagon filled with dynamite, creating shockwaves that would alter the landscape of cinema forever. With bold, reckless vision, Italian directors like Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci blazed new trails in the style, violence, and political identity of the genre, thunderously shattering classical Hollywood Western mythology and influencing generations of filmmakers to this day. Saddle up and journey with us into the windswept, blood soaked, and operatic terrain of the Spaghetti West.