You don’t watch The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. You feel it. The dust. The squint. The standoffs. Sergio Leone’s 1966 masterpiece is not just one of the greatest Westerns in the history of cinema; it’s also one of the coolest movies ever made. And the dialogue? Lean, mean, and memorable.
One of my favorite films, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly can be a bit reclamatory (I.e. “For a few dollars more, you can count them”), courtesy of Clint Eastwood starring in the role of the Good, Lee Van Cleef as the Bad and Eli Wallach as arguably the Ugly (never tell that man he’s ugly, or at all). Every line in this movie feels chiseled from the desert and slicked with gunpowder. These The Good, the Bad and the Ugly quotes, are no-nonsense, iconic and sure to stand the test of time — much like the film.
These are the sharpest lines from the most stylish standoff in movies.
- Tuco: “When you have to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.”
- Blondie (The Good): “You see, in this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig.”
- Tuco: “There are two kinds of spurs, my friend. Those that come in by the door… and those that come in by the window.”
- Tuco: “I like big fat men like you. When they fall, they make more noise.”
- Angel Eyes (The Bad): “Even a filthy beggar like that has got a protecting angel. A golden-haired angel watches over him.”
- Blondie: “Every gun makes its own tune.”
- Tuco: “I’ve been looking for you for eight months. Whenever I should have had a gun in my hand, you had to go and be a good guy.”
- Angel Eyes: “You know, the pity is when I’m paid, I always follow my job through. You know that.”
- Tuco: “God is on our side because he hates the Yanks!”
- Blondie: “You’re a son of a… [Tuco interrupts] …a son of a thousand fathers, all bastards like you.”
- Tuco: “You became a priest because you’re too much of a coward to do what I do!”
- Blondie: “Such ingratitude after all the times I saved your life.”
- Tuco: “If you work for a living, why do you kill yourself working?”
- Tuco: “The way I figure, there’s really not too much future with a sawed-off runt like you.”
These are the kind of classic western movie quotes that never get old being quoted, memed, and stitched into modern movies. The lines from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is dry, lethal and the perfect amount of funny. They aren’t just dialogue — they’re in the DNA of film itself.
Whether you are a fan of this for the Clint Eastwood quotes, Tuco’s finest lines or just to remember that the loudest words are sometimes the quietest, this is the gold.
