Referenced By / Dollars Trilogy

aka: The Good The Bad And The Ugly

References to Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy films; A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in other media.

See also: The Expy With No Name and A Fistful of Rehashes.

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Anime and Manga

• The pilot episode of Cowboy Bebop has the main character Spike Spiegel appear dressed in a poncho and sombrero, evoking Man with No Name imagery, among many other Western tropes present in the series.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Jotaro Kujo is directly inspired by the Man With No Name. A stoic, Terse Talker whose longcoat and school uniform hat bring to mind the Man With No Name's poncho and cowboy hat, and who travels to desert land of Egypt during the course of Stardust Crusaders. When Hirohiko Araki met Eastwood in 2012 as part of the series' 25th anniversary celebration and presented him with an original framed Jotaro Kujo illustration; in return, Eastwood recreated one of the character's signature poses.
• The Magnificent Kotobuki: The trilogy is homaged several times throughout with series and episodes being named after the localized titles of the films when they were released in Japan. The series' title, Kotobuki Squadron in Wilderness, is a reference to A Fistful of Dollars, of which the Japanese localized title is The Bodyguard in Wilderness. Meanwhile, Episode 12's title, The Kotobuki Squadron of the Setting Sun is a reference to For a Few Dollars More's localized title, Gunman of the Setting Sun.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds: While owing a lot to urban and punk dystopian works, the Crashtown arc sends Yusei to the titular town which is controlled by two feuding gangs who settle matters during duels at sunset. Unique duel disks are employed in the arc that are the spitting image of revolvers when not in use, a important side character is named Sergio, Yusei proves his worth to one gang by beating three of its members in the span of one turn. Many cards that Yusei's friend (and reason for coming to the town) Kiryu uses now have a Western influence as well, and in one particularly significant moment Kiryu channels another Eastwood role to muse how he's lost track of how many monsters are left in his deck.

Comic Books

• The Green Lantern: While working undercover in the guise of a four-armed alien cowboy, Hal Jordan is referred to as a "man no with no name".
• Hitman (1993): An annual for the series focuses on a treasure hunt for a million dollars stolen in the closing days of the The Wild West and buried in a coffin marked with a dollar sign - in a graveyard with over a thousand others
• Terra-Man, a Pre-Crisis Superman villain who is a literal Space Cowboy, is directly modeled after Eastwood's Man With No Name per his creator Cary Bates.

Film — Animated

• Rango: The titular character meets a being called "The Spirit of the West", voiced by Timothy Olyphant, who appears to him as an elderly version of Eastwood in his iconic Man with No Name outfit. He's even said he used to be referred to as "a man with no name".

Film — Live-Action

• Back to the Future Part III directly homages the famous gunfight in A Fistful of Dollars - which is is also a Call-Back to how Biff was watching that very scene in Part II before Marty shut off the TV.
• Clint Eastwood himself would homage his work on the Dollars Trilogy in his later films. Often in the form of Deconstruction the Man With No Name archetype he made famous.
  • High Plains Drifter: The Hotel Manager attempting to shoot the Stranger in the back after he's killed all the gunmen is remarkably similar to the remaining Rojo brother trying to shoot The Man With No Name in the back after he's killed everybody else in A Fistful of Dollars. In both cases, the friend of Eastwood's character shoots the gunman before he can fire
  • Unforgiven: William Munny, beaten and bloody, crawling out of the saloon and across the boardwalk outside, is highly reminiscent of the scene from A Fistful of Dollars where The Man With No Name was trying to escape the Rojo gang after getting a beating from them. Eastwood also considers William Munny to be an elderly and worn down version of his character/archetype from the Dollars Trilogy.
• The Expendables: Chuck Norris' character, Booker, has the theme of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly as his Leitmotif.
• The Korean western, The Good, The Bad, The Weird, is both a Foreign Remake and a Deconstruction of the third film (as if the title isn't evident enough). With a Everybody's Dead, Dave Downer Ending.
• Kick-Ass has the theme from For a Few Dollars More playing as Hit-Girl enters the D'Amico building pretending to be a defenseless girl.
• The Lone Ranger: Tonto looting the corpses of Dan's posse, he and The Lone Ranger riding through the desert with an umbrella and the bridge detonation are all Shout Outs to The Good, The Bad, and Ugly.
• Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome: Max's name isn't known to Bartertown's public, forcing Dr. Dealgood to announce him at the Thunderdome as "The Man With No Name".
• The Wuxia, The Magic Blade, with it's protagonist, Fu Hung-hsueh, being a poncho-clad drifter who travels the land and fighting evil-doers. The sequel, Pursuit of Vengeance, directly homages the "Four coffins" scene with Fu Hung-hsueh stopping a horse-cart carrying five coffins, and saying four of them are occupied. Cue four enemy assassins emerging from four of those coffins - and a short battle later, four of them returns to their coffins, killed by the hero.
• The musical pocket watches in For a Few Dollars More are homaged with the musical lockets in the second and third of the Pirates of the Caribbean films.
• Just about every film by Quentin Tarantino homages the Dollars Trilogy in some way.
  • Reservoir Dogs, his first film, ends with a homage to the iconic three-way Mexican Standoff. The character Mr. Blonde is also referred to as "Blondie" at one point.
  • Pulp Fiction: The famous scene of Samuel L. Jackson's character Jules helping himself to a cheeseburger before killing Brett is similar to the introduction of Angel Eyes.
  • Kill Bill: The opening shot is a reference to the scene where Tuco points a gun at Blondie, who is near-death from dehydration and being out in the sun for hours. In addition, score from the film is heard after Budd has shot The Bride
  • Inglourious Basterds, the opening scene of Col. Landa's visiting of the French farmer hiding the Jewish refugees mirrors Angel Eyes visiting Stevens and his family inquiring about Jackson.
  • Django Unchained: The ending of the film with the character Stephen screaming "YOU SON OF A B-" that has gets cutoff by an explosion as Django walks away triumphantly is a homage to the ending of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly with Tuco and Blondie.
  • The Hateful Eight: Maj. Warren forces Smithers' son to walk through the snow naked, which recalls Tuco forcing Blondie to walk through the desert.
  • Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: Cliff's arrival at the derelict Spahn Ranch is almost a short-for-shot mirror of the opening of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly with the bounty hunters arriving in the desolate town trying to kill Tuco.
• Boba Fett of the Star Wars franchise is directly inspired by Eastwood's Man With No Name character, with his famous armor sporting a similar color scheme and being a man of few words. Early concept art even had Fett sporting a poncho◊.

Live-Action TV

• Breaking Bad: Tuco Salamanca is named after Tuco. Both being Mexican criminals with excitable and violent personalities operating out of New Mexico.
• The Mandalorian: Pedro Pascal has stated in interviews he modeled his performance as the titular Mandalorian after Eastwood in the Dollars films.
• The Sunny Side Up Show: Oscar the Grouch mentions in an interview with Kaitlin and Chica that one of his favorite movies is The Good, the Bad, and the Grouchy.
• Veronica Mars: In the third seasons premiere episode "Welcome Wagon", Logan is sitting on a bench on campus when he hears Veronica growl at him, "You a bounty hunter, boy?" Logan jokes he shouldn't have shown the films to her all summer.
• In Fallout (2024), The Ghoul visits a former NCR Ranger's home and even sits and eats at his table, mirroring Angel Eyes' visit to Stevens in The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly. Throughout the series, he carries his saddlebags on one shoulder in much the same way as The Man With No Name does in scenes in towns throughout the trilogy.

Literature

• Roland Deschain of Stephen King's The Dark Tower novel series is heavily inspired by The Man With No Name character. He's even directly called a "fantasy version of Clint Eastwood" by a character in the series.
• The climatic showdown between Vimes, Cruces and Carrot in Men at Arms is an homage to the duel between Indigo and Mortimer in For A Few Dollars More. Vimes' watch even plays the same tune as El Indio's music box. With nothing but a few italicized bings Pterry managed to accurately reproduce musical sound in text.
• Deathlands. Doc Tanner is discussing cyrogenic freezing. When someone asks who was selected for this he replies, "The good, the bad and...I can't remember the last bit." He then recalls that politicians were one of the categories selected, reminding him of the last word.

Music

• Martini Ranch (the side project of Bill Paxton), in their song "Reach", includes the famous snippet to the theme from The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly. The music video goes even further, being an Homage to spaghettie westerns (albeit set in modern times), and even has Kathryn Bigelow playing an Expy of The Man with No Name.
• Metallica have done their own cover of "Ecstasy of Gold" and usually open their concerts with the original piece.

Podcast

• The trilogy, along with Once Upon a Time in the West and Once Upon a Time in America, were reviewed by the Now Playing podcast.

Video Games

• Akane has a Steam achievement for unlocking all guns is called "A WOMAN WITH NO NAME".
• Call of Juarez series is heavily influenced by the Dollars Trilogy. In particular in the second game, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, the American Civil War setting in the early stages and the search for a lost legendary cache of gold along the American-Mexican borderlands brings to mind ''The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly".
• Civilization: Beyond Earth: The achievements for unlocking all Tier 1 and Tier 2 Virtue synergy bonuses are "A Fistful of Dollars" and "For a Few Dollars More", respectively.
• Desperados: Among numerous references to the trilogy, the character of Doc is heavily based off of Lee Van Cleef's Colonel Douglass Mortimer. He even sports an identical weapon.
• Fallout 2 has three dogtags that can be found among Bishop's mercenaries who are mounting attacks on Vault City. These tags bear the names of Blondie, Tuco, and Angel Eyes. Additionally, if the Chosen Ones chooses to track down Pretty Boy Lloyd, they can take him out to Golgotha to dig up a hidden treasure in an unmarked grave, where the Chosen One can even tell Lloyd that there are two kinds of people in the world: Those with loaded guns and those who dig.
• Fallout: New Vegas: Much of the game's Western elements that make up the setting draw inspiration from the Dollars Trilogy, including the basic premise of a wandering figure manipulating the two or more factions for their own benefit. An achievement in the game is even called "A Fistful of Hollars"
  • The Someguy Series of mods for Fallout New Vegas takes the inspiration even further, by allowing you to play as a bounty hunter tracking down targets across the Mojave. With many of the characters and other plot elements being directly modeled after characters from the Dollars Trilogy. There's even a dialogue option that lets you chose to remain silent in conversations, evoking the Terse Talker aspect of the Man With No Name.
• Henry Stickmin Series: The original Flash release of Escaping the Prison used the original theme of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly during the Showdown at High Noon segment in the Badass Ending. While the retooled Badass Bust-Out for The Henry Stickmin Collection lacks this theme, it uses a copyright-friendly song that's meant to resemble it.
• Erron Black of the Mortal Kombat is an obvious derivative of The Man With No Name archetype.
• Cassidy of the Overwatch franchise is modeled after the Man With No Name, with a very similar outfit, a revolver he shoots with near-superhuman accuracy, and a deep voice. In addition parts of his past continue to be a mystery over the game's run, such as his life before joining the Deadlock Gang, and how he lost his arm. He also initially refuses to join the reformed Overwatch, preferring to work alone as a drifter.
• Red Dead
  • Red Dead Redemption: The Nuevo Paraiso section of the game, with its Darker and Edgier tone, Mexican environment and architecture, Black-and-Gray Morality, and an easily-acquirable poncho are obvious Shout-Outs to the trilogy. There's even an Achievement/Trophy gained by collecting ten thousand dollars titled "More Than A Fistful".
  • Red Dead Redemption 2: Chapter 3’s story arc consists of the gang traveling to a town run by two enemy factions, playing both sides again each other and profiting from the chaos. Sound familiar?
• Star Wars Jedi: Survivor: Caij Vanda's quote during a three-way Mexican Standoff between herself, Cal Kestis, and Boba Fett.

"There's two kinds of people in the Galaxy: Those with live thermal detonators and those without! I trust you boys can do the math."

• The Town with No Name: Both title of the name and name of the player character (also called A Man With No Name) are obvious Shout-Outs. There is even a completely separate character that is a Clint Eastwood Expy along with a Lee Van Cleef Expy.
• In ULTRAKILL, the player can receive the score bonus "+FISTFUL OF DOLLAR" by taking a coin tossed from the Marksman Revolver and punching it into an enemy.

Webcomics

• The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal: TJ asks Amal to pick his favorite out of Clint Eastwood and John Wayne. Amal asks him to clarify if he means Dirty Harry Eastwood or Fistfull of Dollars Eastwood before declaring that Eastwood wins regardless.
• Poison Ivy Gulch: The 7/12/2020 strip shows Ace wearing a hat and poncho much like the Man with No Name.

Western Animation

• Avatar The Last Air Bender: The episode "Zuko Alone" is an entire Cowboy Episode homage with the basic premise of the titular Zuko being the mysterious wandering figure arriving in a town overrun by Earth-Bending thugs.
• Bounty Hamster. In the first episode, Cassie and Marion are being pursued by another bounty hunter, a horse-like alien who wears a poncho and talks like Clint Eastwood.
  Marion: It's the mule with no manners!
  Bounty Hunter: The Horse With No Name.
  Cassie: But if you're called The Horse With No Name, surely that is your name.
  Bounty Hunter: Shuddup!
• Samurai Jack: Leone's films were a major influence on the artistic style of the series. Specifically, a scene in an episode where the Daughters of Aku hunt down Jack hiding in a tomb among a sea of others is deliberately modeled after the "Ecstasy of Gold" scene
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Bounty hunter, Cad Bane, is inspired by Lee Van Cleef's Angel Eyes. Fittingly had the show continued as originally planned, he would have developed a partnership and then rivalry with the Man With No Name-inspired Boba Fett.
  • The character of Hondo Ohnaka is also partially inspired by Eli Wallach's Tuco.
• Transformers: Animated: The unaligned but villainous bounty hunter, Lockdown, is inspired by elements of both Blondie and Angel Eyes. He even temporarily sports a poncho in his return episode, fittingly titled "A Fistful of Energon", in the second season.
• Transformers: Cyberverse: Ex-Autobot Wild Wheel's design is directly taken from the Man With No Name, right down to even having a metal poncho.

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