Sergio Leone breathed new life into the Western genre at a time America was deciding the Western was dead. He established and defined the spaghetti western as a new sub-genre. He made an international star of Clint Eastwood, and proved a major influence when Eastwood went on to direct. Leone brought the composer Ennio Morricone to the attention of audiences around the world. And he ended his career with a gangster epic to rival The Godfather.

Born into an Italian film-making family, Leone's early experiences were on costume epics, and working with American directors on cheap Italian locations. He used this knowledge when he adapted the Japanese classic Yojimbo into the spaghetti western A Fistful Of Dollars. The immediate success of the film propelled Leone into the front rank of world directors and left him free to make bigger and bigger tales of a mythical America he dreamed into existence.

This book analyses all of Leone's films and includes background information about his early career, his immense influence on the Western and on film-makers like Quentin Tarantino and John Woo, and the subsequent careers of Eastwood and Morricone.