This Is Where The Good, The Bad And The Ugly Was Actually Filmed
Considered by many, including Spaghetti Western aficionado Quentin Tarantino, to be legendary director Sergio Leone's finest movie, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" is an unpredictable, riveting finish to the "Man With No Name" trilogy he created with star Clint Eastwood. Eastwood is the nameless drifter known only as "Blondie" who races to find buried Confederate gold alongside the cunning, seedy bandit Tuco (Eli Wallach). Pitted against them is the sociopathic Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef), who wants the treasure for his own and will do anything to get it. Backed by incredible, sweeping widescreen shots and a stirring Ennio Morricone score, "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" is one of the all-time great Westerns.
The movie belongs to the Spaghetti Western genre, meaning produced by Italian filmmakers and filmed internationally, but featuring American movie stars. So if they didn't film much in North America, how exactly did they get those amazing location sequences in the desert and in the graveyard?
This is where "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" was filmed.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly was largely shot in Spain
According to Chapter 5 of "The Old West In Fact and Film" by Jeremy Agnew, the majority of the filming locations were in Spain in the municipality of Almeria. This included the use of the countryside of Andalucia for exterior scenes. The Arlanza River for instance filled in for the Langstone Bridge when they had to shoot the battle scene (via Offscreen).
Meanwhile, the iconic graveyard featured in the final showdown, Sad Hill, was in fact a location in northern Spain more than a hundred miles from Madrid. Most recently the spot has been restored to resemble the famous movie set and attract visitors, according to The Guardian.
Other locations included Granada and areas of Madrid as well. Director Sergio Leone and the crew also shot sequences at the Cinecittà film studio in Rome (via The Vintage News).
Only a few scenes were shot in North America, specifically Durango, Mexico, according to IMDb, but ultimately nobody could see the difference between the breathtaking locations in Spain and those in North America.