The film was loosely styled after Akira Kurosawa 's 1954 film Seven Samurai , and drew heavily from the conventions of Westerns , especially Sergio Leone 's Spaghetti Westerns such as Once Upon a Time in the West ( 1968 ) , and John Sturges ' film The Magnificent Seven ( 1960 ) . Sholay was also influenced by the westerns of Sam Peckinpah , such as The Wild Bunch ( 1969 ) and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid ( 1973 ) ; and by George Roy Hill 's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ( 1969 ) . A scene depicting an attempted train robbery was inspired by a similar scene in North West Frontier ( 1959 ) , and a scene showing the massacre of Thakur 's family have been compared with the massacre of the McBain family in Once Upon a Time in the West . Some plot elements was borrowed from the Indian films Mera Gaon Mera Desh ( 1971 ) and Khote Sikkay ( 1973 ) .