A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

How often does it happen that a classic film gets remade, and the remake becomes a classic in its own right? That's what happens when you're as badass as Sergio Leone, I guess -- he takes Kurosawa's rousing samurai flick Yojimbo and ratchets everything up to insane, overdone levels. It's a film constructed completely from hyperbole, yet it still manages to feel iconic and stripped-down even as it goes stylistically bonkers. Would that all spaghetti Westerns were half this cool.

Grade: A-