Clint Eastwood: My Top 25 Favorite Movies ...Punk.

Clint Eastwood.
A monkey*.
Comedy.
The late 70's.
You do the math.

*(or ape or whatever....)

  The neighborhood is changing. With the exception of one neighbor... yep, that's right.... the guy who is the subject of this particular list, good ol' Clint Eastwood himself. Or more specifically, Clint Eastwood playing a neighbor named Walter Kowalski. An old veteran set in his ways but living in an area that is continually changing. And one of the things that is changing is that the streets are not as safe as they used to be. For him or for the immigrants who are moving in. Forcing Kowalski to face both his prejudices and the dangers that threaten his old ways.
Stilted subject matter that is handled in a stilted manner, but as a film, manages to come full circle in the end.

  Yet another entry into the genre for the venerable Mr. Eastwood and yet another one where he portrays a mysterious man who rides into town to save the day from rough-riding thugs who have a penchant for terrorizing the locals. If it weren't for the lengthy time span between Pale Rider and Clint's 1973 cowboy outing as the High Plains Drifter, it'd be really easy to get the two flicks mixed up. Many of the basic elements of both movie premises are similar enough, with the major difference being that in Drifter he plays a Man-With-No-Name from "Hell", whereas in Rider he plays a heaven-sent "Preacher-With-No-Name from hell. Nevermind the fact that we've seen a similar elements all chapters of the Dollars trilogy. Though, now that I think about it, PR's story also seems to have the distinction of edging towards some kind of grittier update one of the most classics of westerns, Shane.



  At the end of the day though, it's still a solid Eastwood shoot-em-up despite the rerunning of certain formulas. Because, while not all of Clint's cowboy movies were great, IMO, none of 'em were bad either, including this one. For the 80's, Pale Rider helps to fill in a quota of cinema iconography that we've gotten used to seeing in the 60's and in the 70's; the shadowy, roughly cut visage of Eastwood's face under a dusty cowboy hat with silently gritted teeth, ready to dish out some six-shooting justice to any "black-hatted" hombre lookin' to stir up some trouble.

  Harry Callahan may be a cop who's often referred to as "Dirty", but he's still a cop who strongly believes that, when it comes to taking the law into your own hands, a man has got to know his limitations. So when a "magnum force" of renegade officers begin a reign a rogue vigilantism, naturally, the only one who could stop 'em is a good cop with a bad attitude. With his trusty Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44 Magnum by his side, it's up to Dirty Harry to clean up the streets of dirty traffic officers who tend to deal with violations with more than just a citation.

  As a fan of the Dollars Trilogy, I was at first a little disappointed at the softness of Eastwood's character in this film. For a story called "Hang 'Em High", I think I was expecting a more of a Man with No Name type of gunslinger, who went sought justice with a much more gritty and dusty sense of vengeance. However, after I read an interview in which Clint stated that the reason he chose to do Hang "em was to move away from the hard-edged archetype established by the Leone westerns, I decided to rewatch this movie but with a more reevaluated outlook. 
  After I did, I appreciated more what the intent of the storyline was and saw that its premise was to go opposite of what spaghetti shootouts were going for.
  So, while I still like the Italians versions of the Ol' West more, this one, IMO, does a very capable job of balancing the dirty modern cowboy genre with the classical slant that bought the genre to such a prominent status in the world of motion pictures in the first place.

Here Clint is a Secret Service agent determined not to allow another incident such as the Kennedy assassination happen again, and John Malkovich counter-determined to make sure history is repeated.
Malkovich is excellent in a role that makes the most out of creepiness that always seems to follow his persona. I always thought that as the cunning lead antagonist, this was a characteristic in John that should be utilized more often.
And yeah, I know that I should probably be focusing more Eastwood since this theme of this list is based on him,
but let's be honest....
when is John Malkovich ever gonna get a list of his own?

  There's a serial killer in San Paulo who is a female named Jennifer. And her victims? The men who raped her and her sister ten years earlier. So who do the police send out to track and capture this mixed up maiden of mass murder? Well none other than the officer most known for his most unconventional tactics, brutal force and really big gun.



 Thirteen years after introducing the world to the grittiest, most hard-hittin', barrel totin' cop, not just in San Francisco, but anywhere on the globe, this fourth film in the franchise shows that when it comes to bending the rules as a cop, Dirty Harry is still gettin' the job done. And in the process, stills knows how to make a sudden impact.

In space, no one can hear an old man fart.



Space Cowboys is a movie with formula written all over it. Which, though usually that tends to be a bad thing, when done correctly, as this movie does, can act as a reminder of why the formula became a formula in the first place. With Eastwood (playing a different kind of cowboy than he usually does) leading a cast full of well-seasoned actors whose individual film credits all accumulate into a comfortability in front of the camera that allows each actor to feel just as comfortable up in space, there here film is what I refer to as a non-guilty guilty pleasure.

  As this list demonstrates, Clint's cowboy career was solidified as a man with no name type of gunslinger in the spaghetti westerns that he starred in during the latter half of the 1960's. And while he was able to parlay that into a cowboy career in his films for Hollywood, his reputation as that man with no name would eventually crossover into these English-speaking traveling six-shooters. This is the first one of those western Westerns in which his character is sans moniker and is simply listed as "The Stranger". 



  From the high plains comes a mysterious drifter with enough gun gusto to make the small mining town of Lago take notice. So, the towns people decide to hire this man with no name as their protector. But soon find themselves not just at his mercy, but also within his own personal version of Hell.

The gauntlet has been thrown down and Dirty Harry has accepted the challenge.
Even if the only way of getting there means he has to take a bus.



And, yeah, I know that technically speaking, this isn't a Dirty Harry flick.
But c'mon....
Eastwood as a cop who gets himself in more trouble than a whole squadron of police officers can handle....?
As far as I can tell, the only difference between this movie and all the other Callahan films is the name that's on the badge.

Take a heist movie and combine it with a war movie and what do get?
Three Kings.
Take a heist movie and combine it with a war movie both made in the beginning of the 70's decade and what do you get?
Kelly's Heroes.

A cool cast of actors that include the ever reliable Clint Eastwood, Teddy Savales, Carroll O'Connor, Don frikkin' Rickles and an offbeat yet definitely fun and memorable role from Donald Sutherland.

  Although his gun has traveled to the Ol' West before, this is the first time when Clint rides his horse into it via a more Italian route.
  As I mentioned in some of Eastwood's other Western entries, fueled with the advent of the spaghetti westerns, the icon of the cowboy legend had begun to evolve into a more complex figure, of the quiet lone wolf who's only identity traits were marked by the mystery of his identity and by the grit of his character. No one exemplified this role better than CE, and as a result, helped to launch the mystic aura of the wandering, gunslinging maverick into the canon of this pasta and meatball heavy slant of shoot 'em up cinema.
And as a result, thus began this particular sub-genre within a genre, which eventually would lead to A Fistful of Dollars and the beginning of a memorable trilogy that takes a non-American take on a classic American icon.

CE excellently directs this tale of the pacific war from the view of a band Japanese.
A country in which the war is not just against the the Allies, but also in a war within itself between the new methods and technology of the new age against it's revered ancient traditions of honor for one's native land and emperor, not to mention against the obligational feelings towards own family.
Who knew that a tale about the "other side" would make such a great American movie?



I know that Clint doesn't actually act in this one, but I was really impressed with this film, that I just had to include it on this list.

The third chapter into the series, The Enforcer is pretty much typical Dirty Harry fare, except now the rule bustin' antihero has a female partner.
However, despite being forced to side up with a quota filler for the Women's Lib Movement,
that doesn't stop Inspector Harold Francis Callahan from carrying a 70's machismo-sized chip on his shoulder. Nor does it keep him from dishing out justice with hand guns so big that, expecting him to stay within the lines,
well, you're gonna hafta be feelin' lucky
....punk.

During the first half of the 70's, "road pictures" were all the rage. And throughout the entirety of the decade, Mr. Eastwood seemed to be a permanent fixture on movie theater screens everywhere, no matter what time of the season it was.
So it was inevitable that the two would meet.
Add in the promising directorial debut of Michael Cimino (a director who's who high-profile potential would be responsible for The Deer Hunter, but then quickly spiral towards critical and commercial disasters like Heaven's Gate and Year Of The Dragon...) and the scene-stealing performance of Jeff Bridges,
and what you end up with is a road picture that, when compared to other films of the genre, seems to get better mileage than the rest as the years go by.

Take the name "Dirty Harry" and replace it with "Josey Wales". Take out the "modern-day morally-deprived punks" out of the plot and put in a "Social-Conscious of National Regret" instead. Now change the "1970's" to the "1870's", and switch the "big hefty handguns" with "long-ass six-shooters". And what you end up with is an Old West hard-edged cowboy in place of a new West hard-edged street-cop. But with the same Eastwood level of badassery.

  With 225 kills behind enemy lines, Chris Kyle is the most "successful" sniper in U.S.  military history. While that may make for a great action thriller, as biopic on the real life effects of military service, it's a the kind of career that come with a pretty high price, on family, friends and one's mental stability. 
  Directed by the guy who's the topic of this particular list, who at this point, has gotta be the oldest successful director of all time, American Sniper "loosely" follows the journey of Kyle as a Navy SEAL who's skillz with a longe range scope rifle was celebrated by fellow soldies and townspeople alike. But on a personal level, it was a was talent that made living a normal family life  the kind of struggle of which very few people on the planet can truly relate to. 

  Back in 1964, A Fistful of Dollars introduced one of the most iconic shoot 'em up characters in cinema, The Man with No Name. In this story, he returns, but now, he comes with a name, ("Manco"...?). However, despite knowing what to call him, he is still a gunslinging man of mystery, who, after teaming up with a partner (Col. Mortimer), this time around, he is out for more than just a fistful of dollars.
 


 This follow-up to the first Dollars movie is has become yet another staple to the genre, and is an excellent example of demonstrating that, when it comes to starring in Westerns, Clint Eastwood has begun to develop a taste for cowboy chronicles with a more Oriental flavor but piled high with spaghetti and meatballs.
 Although he had already starred in other films centered on the Ol' West, this is the series that made Eastwood a name synonymous in the genre. And outside of John Wayne, probably no other Hollywood figure has come to exemplify the role of the role of the wandering gunhand that Mr. E..
 From here on end, Clint's six-shooting streak may have not been perfect, but it was becoming a permanent part of the fixture. The roughly cut visage of his face in a Stetson hat and a poncho was one of those iconic images that for me, personally, will always be a fundamental part of not just the spaghetti western, but the whole Western genre in general. 

Well, the same year that Dirty Harry made his movie debut, Evelyn Draper came along in Play Misty For Me and showed all the men that not only is she as angry as the rule busting inspector, but more importantly, that she is a woman scorned.
And we all know about the fury that results from that of a woman who has been scorned....
it's enough to make the Magnum .44 or any other gun from Smith & Wesson look like a pea-shooter.



In other words,
she's crazy as hell and she's not gonna take it anymore, Clint!

  As anyone can see from the movies that make up this particular list, Eastwood has made an entire career of playing the outlaw. Whether it be a no-named outlaw gunslinger of the Ol' West in a buncha westerns both in the spaghetti and straight up genres, or as the outlaw police detective who prefers bending the rules within the police system in a bunch of "dirty" cop movies. 
   Here in Escape from Alcatraz, the old Clintster tries his hand at being an outlaw among outlaws within the traditional escapist confines of a prison movie.  As the film title heavily implies, he portrays what appears to have been the very first successful (allegedly) escapee from that most infamous of infamous island prisons, the big rock known as Alcatraz. Fellow cast members include the actor who played Remo Williams, the brit who was the original Prisoner, and that one guy with the droopy face who played the "other" Kramer in that one episode of Seinfeld.

  My list of favorite Eastwood films is just one example of how good of a actor/director he is. Because, if you'll notice, every entry in the top five takes place in a different decade. Clint's ability to produce good work spans decades.
  At the start of the 70's, he begins his tour de force as one of the most iconic figures not only in his career, but also, in the history of all of cinema. As a no-holds-barred plain clothes cop from San Francisco who sports a 70's machismo-sized chip on his shoulder and a Smith & Wesson Model 29 in his shoulder holster. Inspector Harold Francis "Dirty Harry" Callahan is an on-the-street inspector who consistently talks through incessantly gritted teeth, enjoys pissing off his starch-collared superiors and welds big, hefty handguns like they were just a natural extension of what makes him so dirty to begin with.



  In other words, as police officer who bends the rules when it comes to criminals who likes to break 'em, 
he's mad as hell and he's not gonna take it anymore... punk!

 In the previous entry, I mentioned that Clint's career of quality work in front of and behind the camera spans decades. On the top of that, if you look closely at the top five of this list, you will notice that it also spans various genres. The guy most famous for portraying dusty, nameless cowboys and in-your-face street cops, has also directed and produced a romance film that is not only one of my favorites in his filmography, but also my favorite romance film of all time. I don't know if it's because of his no-nonsense style of filmmaking or the straightforward, edgy sensibility that he brings to all his pictures, but with The Bridges of Madison County, he manages to bring a down-to-earth realness to a genre known for basing its stories on the fairy-tale formula that Hollywood has cashed in on since the beginning of the motion picture industry. 
  Based on one of the best-selling romance novels of the modern era, it's a story of passion that breaks out of the boundaries of the typical young love conquers all obstacles, and instead, goes into the enclosed kitchen walls of an everyday middle-aged couple who yearn for the same rewards that the affairs of the heart administer to anyone seeking to match up with their mate of the soul. Under the scribe, direction, not to mention, musically scored talents of Eastwood, we get a tangled tale of courtship between two mature protagonist who know better, and therefore, have to approach their fantasy of amorous connection with the realization that family responsibility to their kith, kin, home and hearth, are not factors that can be so easily discarded. 
 As I implied earlier, it's a love story that is real, that comes with consequences. And it's those consequences that make the idea of "happily ever after" a pipe dream more than they do a fairytale fantasy. Headed up with Clint and the uber-reliable Meryl Streep as the star-crossed courtiers from the county of Madison, Bridges is the rare romance flick that will get you right in the feels, but not in the heart-shaped manner that you would expect.

    C'mon now....
   I'm sure we can all agree that when it comes to spaghetti westerns, there is no western out there that gets more spaghetti than this one.
 At the outset of the first western movies, the cowboy characters had been categorized between two basic types: Those who wore the white hats, and those who wore the black ones.
As time passed though, the hat colors began to blur between who was bad, who was bad, and then to eventually who was just plain ugly.
Though this the final film in the "Man with No Name" trilogy, I myself agree with the general consensus that it is the best. And even though there is a contingent who of movie fans out there that, I heard tell, think that insist that the best one is For a Few Dollars More, I'm sure that even they would have to admit that TGtBatU is the most definitive one of the three.
It's almost impossible to think of the genre of the spaghetti western, let alone this particular series and not see the image of the iconic trio of Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach.
 Eastwood himself had helped to define the mythical figure of the cowboy more than just about anyone other Hollywood with the obvious exception of John Wayne, but his roles in the Italian slant of the genre took the gunslinger figure to a different direction that film aficionados were not used to up until then. Now they were of a more of a more dusty, gritty nature, that of a sole rough rider who blazed a trail through the Wild West, alone, with just a pair of six-shooters, a sturdy stallion, and the rugged scars of journeys past that are as just mysterious as his name.  

   I recently saw an interview with Quentin Tarantino in which he spoke about his intention to retire from filmmaking after his tenth movie. The reason he gave was that most directors would "lose their touch" most often after their tenth effort. 
  And then you got directors like Clint Eastwood. The irony with Clint as a director is that he directed some of best very work during the later stages of his career. 
  He made his directorial debut at the start of the 70's decade with Play Misty for me, which was a pretty good way to start a career sitting in that chair. From there on, he directed some very good motion pictures, and even the not-so-good ones weren't really all that bad. With the amount of films that he producing as a director, he definitely destined to leave some kind of mark in that particular category.  

  But shortly after the 90's began, his skillz behind the camera seem to take a leap forward with the release of the anti-gun Western drama, Unforgiven. Not only did it score him an Oscar, but it also kickstarted a run that was filled with some of the best work of his entire already longtime career. A good demonstration of the length of this streak was, is that my favorite film that he directed, the aforementioned Unforgiven, which was released in 1992, my second, Million Dollar Baby, that neo-classic sports drama, came out thirteen years later. 
  Following the relationship of a boxing coach and his female prize fighting protege, this is easily CE's most emotionally wrenching movie. It's a quiet, evocative piece of work, despite being helmed by three of the biggest names in Hollywood at the time, Morgan Freeman, Hilary Swank, and Eastwood himself. There's are a lot here that can be pointed out as to why Baby is one of best works of his long and storied career, but I'd have to say that my favorite aspect is the chemistry that results from Clint's and Morgan Freeman's presence in this film. It's pretty obvious from their lean, understated, and yet screen filling performances that these are two seasoned actors so comfortable in their craft, that they both simply move through the running time with a flowing ease of two veterans of their field who are just willing to allow the emotion of the story and the naturalness and trust of each other's acting ability to drive the momentum the emotional premise that is MDB. It's a quiet and powerful force that is so tangible that the much younger, yet equally talented Hilary Swank can't help but to follow suit in doing the same. It all leads to an overall performance from the trio that makes this a film whose power stems not from the boxing themes that one would usually expect from a boxing flick, but more from the emotions that weave and tie the characters together and allows the plot to unfold at its own volition. In the end, it seems almost overkill to describe Million Dollar Baby as anything other than a boxing film that focuses on the female contingent of the sport.
  Or in more simple terms, this is both a heartbreaking and heartwarming feature that had me at "Mo Cuishle".

"That's right. I'm Will Munny and I've killed women and children. I've killed everything that walks or crawls at one time or another. And I'm here to kill you, Little Bill......"



He was once a real tough hombre who was good with a gun and wasn't afraid to use it.
But now, after so many years of trying to build a "normal life" away from that of the wild, wild west, Will Munny comes to realize that when times get hard, old habits, even in old cowboys, die hard.
Push all the right buttons, and the habits of a killer are just like riding a bike (or in this case, riding a horse)...... he never forgets.

The manner in which Clint Eastwood portrays the icon of the ol' western gunslinger here, as a man with a mysterious past which he would preferred to be completely forgotten, yet ultimately, as always, it's a past that comes to haunt him. A tortured soul who has become "broken" by domesticity, his demons are bought back to life one more time when he comes to rely on them for the survival of the redemptive life he has built.
Is it any wonder how this film could've easily been been titled "The Final Chapter Of The Man With No Name.... But Now He Given Him A Name."