It’s strange that when we imagine the music in Westerns we’re actually thinking of the scores for Spaghetti Westerns, the American genre’s low-budget Italian (and Spanish) counterpart. But that’s what made Ennio Morricone, the Italian composer who died in 2020, at 91, so impressive. He distilled the haunting grit of the American West—and its cowboys, banditos, and attractively sordid characters—into a reverberating, lonely, but instantly familiar collection of echoing pan flutes and strummed guitars. Think A Fistful of Dollars. Or The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Giuseppe Tornatore, Morricone’s two-time collaborator, pays tribute to the master and his 70-year career in a sprawling 167-minute epic that’s as orchestral as one of Morricone’s arrangements. It’s an indelible brand that this composer seared on the haunches of European and American cinema. If you’re not convinced, ask yourself why everyone from Hans Zimmer to Bruce Springsteen has a cameo in the documentary. —Nathan King