"Once Upon a Time in the West" was reviewed in 1969 in the "Chicago Sun-Times" by Roger Ebert, who gave it two-and-a-half out of four stars. He found it to be "good fun" and "a painstaking distillation" of Leone's famous style, with intriguing performances by actors cast against their type and a richness of detail projecting "a sense of life of the West" made possible by Paramount's bigger budget for this Leone film. Ebert complained, however, of the film's length and convoluted plot, which he said only becomes clear by the second hour. While viewing Cardinale as a good casting choice, he said she lacked the "blood-and-thunder abandon" of her performance in "Cartouche" (1962), blaming Leone for directing her "too passively."