Sergio Leone's 1964 film A Fistful of Dollars, the movie that launched Clint Eastwood to stardom and helped define the "Spaghetti Western" subgenre, is now available to watch for free on YouTube. The film marked a turning point for Westerns, moving away from the clear-cut good-versus-evil morality tales of the genre's earlier "Golden Era" towards the darker, morally ambiguous style known as the Revisionist Western. Its availability offers modern audiences an easy way to revisit a landmark piece of cinema history at no cost.

The story follows an unnamed, mysterious stranger played by Eastwood who arrives in the frontier town of San Miguel and manipulates two rival criminal families, the Rojos and the Baxters, for his own profit rather than acting as a conventional hero. Directed by Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone and shot in Spain with a largely European cast, the film is notable for its dubbed dialogue, brisk 99-minute runtime and violent, unromanticised depiction of the Old West. It transformed Eastwood, previously known for the television series Rawhide, into a leading man and paved the way for two sequels, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, cementing his decades-long career as a major actor and director.