Zapata Westerns is a nickname given to a subgenre of "Spaghetti Westerns", dating largely from the mid 1960s to early 1970s, which were set in and around Mexico and dealt with overtly political themes. They were named after Emiliano Zapata, the famous Mexican revolutionary from the Mexican Revolution of 1913, during which most of these films are set. The term is also sometimes used for American films set during this conflict.
Most of the early Spaghetti Westerns, such as the early works of Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci, dealt with some subtle political themes, particularly a criticism of Western capitalism and the "dollars" culture of America; however, as a general rule they were secondary to the main plot of the films in question during the early stage of the genre's development in the mid-'60s. However, in the late '60s a number of directors began to shoot Spaghetti Westerns as political allegories, often using the Western setting to mask (to an extent) the intended political outlook, in order to make them more acceptable (to some extent).