35mm Sergio Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST @ Million Dollar Theater

Part of our The Italians series

Saturday, December 6, 2025, Million Dollar Theater

LOCATION: The Million Dollar Theater, 307 S Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90013

3p ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1969, co-wri & dir by Sergio Leone, w/ Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards, Henry Fonda, Paramount 145mns, USA, 35mm)

For any screenings with 35mm prints, always be prepared that we may have to use a DCP.digital backup just in case.

You can get two for one (two tickets for the price of one) to any individual movie or get the ITALIANS double feature pass (both movies, best deal) while supplies last.

3p ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST Sergio Leone was coming off one of the best trilogies of all time-A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly-and he decided he had to go bigger. More epic.

Now that doesn't always work out. But when Once Upon A Time in the West came out in 1969, he managed the rarest of feats-to make a movie as good (some would say even better) than the three classics that preceded it.

Once Upon A Time in the West tells the intersecting stories of four characters-a quiet man bent on revenge (Charles Bronson), a mishievous rogue (Jason Robards), a widowed mail-order bride with a secret past (Claudia Cardinale), and a powerful hired killer who works for the railroads (Henry Fonda in a shocking bad guy performance). Leone, as the title announces, wisely understood that as an Italian he was going to be making a fever dream of what the American west might have meant. And his movie feels BOTH American and European in its obsessions and vision. As if an immigrant made a movie that somehow reflected both their new world (the US) and the world in their hearts (Italy, Europe). Leone also pioneered a cross-cutting memory-present day editing structure that would influence generations of moviemakers. And it's no understatement to say that much of Quentin Tarantino's body of work wouldn't be the same without this movie or the trilogy that preceeded it.

Some movies are meant to be seen on the big screen. This is one of them. On a 35mm archive print.

Go to next door's historic Grand Central Market for breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks as we screen these two all-time world classics. On glorious 35mm.

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