10 Must-read Spaghetti Western Books - From Leone to the Genre’s Demise

Name another film genre than the spaghetti western that has both such an illustrious history and that has also had such a profound impact on world cinema. It changed the way the wild west was portrayed forever. It influenced Martial Arts movies just like it did action movies of the 80s. It brought the biggest stars to fly into the dusty deserts of southern Spain, back then a military dictatorship, and that for a good decade long. Italy’s filmmakers churned out over five hundred of these films over the years until the genre hat run its course and Italy’s film industry collapsed along with it. The ascent of color television and video would dismantle Cinecitta as much as a lack of vision of the industry. The Spaghetti Western helped the hopelessly outdated Western genre of Hollywood to reinvent itself, but the Italian film industry itself failed to recover and innovate, it went kaboom. Read about how the Wild West captured the imagination of European filmmakers from the German Karl May movies to the comedy Spaghetti Westerns of the late 70s. These 10 books will help you study Spaghetti Westerns of all colors. Yes there are more than 10 books, but we believe these will give you the most profound knowledge, the rest will come from browsing the SWDb ;) Enjoy.

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To continue, check out the rest in our Books corner. We also recommend you read our Introduction article. Many thanks for reading this list, do send us your feedback, subscribe to our Newsletter and follow us on the social channels. The SWDb relies on your support, so do consider a donation.