For a Few Dollars More (1965)
★★★★ — For a Few Dollars More (1965)
Let me be straight with you: I think The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is the greatest film ever made. Full stop. So when I sit down with For a Few Dollars More, I'm always watching it through that shadow, measuring it against the mountain that came after it. And here's the thing: that's not entirely fair, because taken on its own terms, this is an absolutely brilliant piece of filmmaking. It's just that "brilliant but slightly overshadowed" is the honest truth of how I feel about it, and I'd rather tell you that upfront than pretend otherwise.
The middle chapter of Leone's Dollars trilogy sits in an interesting place. I loved A Fistful of Dollars for what it was, a lean, stripped-back piece of controlled tension, but For a Few Dollars More feels like Leone stretching his legs, finding out just how much space he can fill. It's bigger, bolder, and more confident, and crucially, it introduces something the first film didn't quite have: a villain worth talking about for decades.
El Indio is one of the most iconic Western villains I've ever seen put to screen. There's a peculiar kind of dread that follows him around. He's not a brute. He's not loud or cartoonish. He's sinister in the quietest, most unsettling way, a man who carries genuine psychological damage and weaponises it. Cunning, haunted, and utterly unforgiving. There's something almost operatic about him, the way he moves through scenes with this sense of ceremony, like violence for him is ritual rather than instinct. He makes the film crackle every time he's on screen, and he gives the whole story a weight that a lesser antagonist simply wouldn't.
And then there's the score. I mean, what is there even left to say about Ennio Morricone that hasn't already been said better by people far more qualified than me? The man composed music that doesn't just accompany the film, it is the film in many ways. The pocket watch motif alone is one of the most devastatingly effective pieces of musical storytelling in cinema history. It's the kind of score that makes you sit up straighter. That makes a wide shot feel like a painting and a stand-off feel like the world might actually end. A score for the ages is not hyperbole. It's just fact.
Leone's direction is doing everything right here too. Those close-ups, the eyes, the hands hovering near holsters, the absolute refusal to rush anything, it all builds atmosphere like pressure in a sealed room. You feel the heat. You feel the stillness before the storm. He's completely in command of the language of the Western and he's bending it to his will.
So why not five stars? Honestly, it comes back to that shadow. When I know what Leone goes on to do, when I know the scale and the emotion and the sheer perfection waiting around the corner, certain stretches here feel like they're still finding the full measure of what they could be. That's an almost impossibly high bar to hold any film to, and I want to be clear: this is not a criticism of what the film is. It's simply the reality of watching it as part of a body of work that contains one of the all-time peaks of the art form. If you're a fan of Leone's wider legacy, Once Upon a Time in the West is the other place I'd send you immediately after this.
Four stars. A brilliant film that deserves far better than to forever be introduced with the words "not quite as good as". Watch it as its own thing, let El Indio unsettle you, let Morricone carry you, and enjoy every slow, sun-baked, magnificent minute of it.
Rating: ★★★★ | Year: 1965 | Watched: 2025-04-13
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Sergio Leone: Duck, You Sucker (1971) · Once Upon a Time in America (1984) · A Fistful of Dollars (1964) · Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
More with Clint Eastwood: Million Dollar Baby (2004) · High Plains Drifter (1973) · Hang 'em High (1968) · Unforgiven (1992)
More from Germany: Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Cemetery Man (1994) · The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) · Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)
More from the 1960s: Viy (1967) · Persona (1966) · Carnival of Souls (1962) · Daisies (1966)
More western: The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) · Rio Bravo (1959) · Ride Lonesome (1959) · The Great Train Robbery (1903)
