Beautifully composed, shot, and told, Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West" is well deserving of its reputation as one of the best Westerns ever made. An epic story of lawlessness, vengeance, and the women and men conquering the untamed American west, Leone's film is meditative and gritty, sweeping and violent. It compels with its carefully composed aesthetic, archetypal-yet-specifically drawn characters, and grand themes.
Steeped in dirt, sweat, and stubble, Leone's film is made up of narrative threads well-known to genre fans. Murder, westward expansion, and frontier justice dominate the plot. The story focuses on a widow whose husband owned precious water rights near the town of Flagstone. With parties trying to forcibly rid the widow of her…