Spaghetti westerns were hyper-violent, low-budget genre films made in Europe by European (usually Italian) studios between 1961 and 1977. The more than five hundred of these films, many forgettable, used European crews, writers, directors, and, for the most part, actors. Location shooting often took place in Spain, parts of which resemble the geography of the American Southwest.

The spaghetti western shot its way into mainstream American culture in 1964 with the release of A Fistful of Dollars, directed by Sergio Leone and starring a little-known American actor named Clint Eastwood as The Man with No Name, an amoral bounty hunter with a lightning-fast draw. The film was immensely popular in the United States and around the world, and led to the production of two sequels: For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966). Two other Leone films were also successful in the United States...