Should I get "Once Upon A Time In America"?

YES.

One of the great achievements of the 20th century. An epic tale that will leave you very deeply moved, but in such a wonderful way that you'll never want to let go of those strong feelings
The cinematography as well as the soundtrack by Ennio Morricone are extraordinary - seriously, none of Leone's western movies offer you so many little details to learn the art of filmmaking (with The Good, The Bad and the Ugly coming quite close, to be fair). And don't get put off by the long running time - you won't notice, I promise you

 

This scene alone worth far more than 5 $:

 

A right it is!

His work is just simply hypnotic. Two of my most favorite works from him are Once Upon a Time in the West and Malena. His music is so bittersweet and you can honestly feel the story by just closing your eyes.

It is like an innocence and pain wrapped up into one. All the mentioned movies would be lessor without it. I love that a guy like Tarantino values his work so much that he seeks him out to do more original material like in the Hateful Eight.

 

A modern masterpiece. A type of epic filmmaking that is becoming far more rare by each decade. A wonderful display of the romance of history and the counterpoint of the brutality that can exist in every person.

 

A little bit off topic, but one more Leone movie is making it to bluray on June 26th. Colossus of Rhodes will be the last of the 7 directed films by Leone to see digital preservation and this makes me very very happy.

Next to Kubrick, he is one of my top directors that did so much with so very little in the way of volume. Quality over quantity in my most humble opinion.

 

Well I’m an idiot. I just realized that this thread is about Once Upon a Time In America, wheras I posted about Once Upon a Time In the West. I bought OUATIA a while back because it was cheap and I thought I would like it, but I still haven’t gotten around to watching it.

 

Once...West is PERFECT.

Once...America is unrealized and the "great" version is yet to be seen. Let us hope it happens one day. I can watch the movie for what it can be vs what it should be. Kind of like how I feel about Beach Boys Smile. It is almost there at 251 mintues..but not quite.

At least with Leone's movie it was finished at 269 minutes. Getting that finished version is the problem but the clamoring for 229 minute versions is not what Leone wanted and it was cut because of censorship and the studio heads.

I love the scene with Louis Fletcher as well as the prostitute and Cleopatra scenes. They don't look that bad to me at all.

 

You know, when it comes to both of Leone's Once Upon a Time films, they're the only ones available on home video almost* as Sergio left them.

*America doesn't have its mono mix and The West

Spoiler

still shows Harmonica standing up on the train platform

and the end credits music was never fixed