Django (1966)

Poor Sergio Corbucci was always standing in the shadow of that other Sergio, who happened to be at his best when making western too. And I can see why. Corbucci's films always looked a lot cheaper, not necessarily in a bad way, but in the kind of way mainstream critics can't cope with: sound stages that look like sound stages, plots that aren't stolen from Kurosawa, instead from the B-western next door, women that are a little more complex than Leone's rape fodder, actual compassion for human beings. And show me an ending more heartbreaking and heartbroken than that of Il Grande Silencio.
I think in Corbucci's greater compassion with his characters lies their higher emotional resonance for me: Where Leone's (and of course he was a great director who made great movies) characters are more or less part of the scenery, Corbucci's are (slightly cardboardy) people. And I never cry for shrubs.