“Amid the endless homages and the sheer adoration meted out to Sergio Leone's ambitious, pricier finale to his Spaghetti Western trilogy, it's easy to forget just how damn good the film is.” - Kim Newman, Empire Magazine
“Of all the great films of the 1960s, THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY is one of a fistful that can be truly appreciated only on the big screen.” - John Monaghan, Detroit Free Press
Saturday, August 16, 5:30 p.m. & Sunday, August 31, 2:00 p.m. | Set in the sun-drenched Southwest during the Civil War, two men—an unnamed drifter (Clint Eastwood) and the bandit Tuco (Eli Wallach)—form an uneasy alliance after they learn that $200,000 is hidden in an unmarked grave. As Tuco knows the cemetery location, and the drifter knows which grave holds the cache, the two set out across war zones to find and share the reward. Meanwhile, the criminal Setenza (Lee Van Cleef) is on his own hunt for the cash and will do anything to claim it for himself. Sergio Leone’s operatic masterpiece, set to Ennio Morricone’s iconic score, dismantles audiences ideas of the romantic western; this is an unforgiving landscape where there is no John Wayne coming to save the day, and even if you survive the final standoff (and what a standoff it is!), you don’t ride off into the sunset, but under a blazingly hot sun.
Scorchers | August 2–31, 2025
Hot enough for you? Welcome to the dog days of summer, when the temperatures reach their peak and it feels like you could fry an egg on the sidewalk. In Scorchers, we explore 10 films where stifling heat has a starring role. In these cinematic sizzlers, characters fan themselves and wipe their brows—and as the degrees rise, so do the stakes. When we’re stripped down, exhausted, and oppressed by an atmosphere warmer than our body temperature, things are bound to explode.
The Film Center is ADA accessible. This presentation will be projected without open captions. The theater is hearing-loop equipped. For accessibility requests, please email filmcenter@saic.edu