Spaghetti Westerns

Spaghetti Western, also known as Italo-western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western film that emerged in the mid-1960s, so named because most were produced and directed by Italians. The language in which the movies were originally released was Italian as well.

The typical team was made up of an Italian director, Italo-Spanish[citation needed] technical staff, and a cast of Italian, Spanish, German and American actors, sometimes a fading Hollywood star and sometimes a rising one like the young Clint Eastwood in three of Sergio Leone's films. The films were shot in inexpensive locales resembling the American Southwest, primarily in central and southern Italy, such as the parks of Valle del Treja (between Rome and Viterbo), the area of Camposecco (next to Camerata Nuova), characterized by a karst topography, the hills around Castelluccio, the area around the Gran Sasso mountain or the Tivoli's quarries, but also Sardinia and the Andalusia region of Spain, Almería at three main studios, Texas Hollywood, Mini Hollywood, and Western Leone.

Typical themes in spaghetti westerns include the Mexican Revolution, Mexican bandits, and the border region shared by Mexico and the United States.