For a Few Dollars More (1965)

Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef meet by taking turns shooting each other’s hats across a dusty street, and in this movie that counts as a handshake. It’s the best scene in a western that runs long. At 132 minutes, the bank job and the stretch inside Indio’s gang lag, and the dubbing often floats a beat behind the actors’ lips. But Van Cleef. Eastwood is the star, all poncho, squint and cigarillo, and Van Cleef still walks off with the movie as an older bounty hunter whose horse carries rifles like a golf bag, with a reason for being here he won’t share yet. Gian Maria Volonté’s El Indio is a seriously unsettling villain, and that musical pocket watch turns every standoff into a countdown. Ennio Morricone’s score whistles, twangs and chimes like nothing else in the genre. Sergio Leone shoots faces like landscapes. An 8.9 because it’s the Dollars movie with the best duel and the best partnership. $38.54 says the next time a ringtone plays across a quiet room, you stand perfectly still until the last note.

What works: Lee Van Cleef steals the movie, and the pocket watch standoffs, set to Morricone’s score, are pure tension.

What doesn’t: The middle stretch around the bank job drags, and the dubbed dialogue is often a beat out of sync with the actors’ mouths.

Who it’s for: Western fans, and anyone who has only seen The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and wants the warm-up act.