Happy Birthday, Clint!
Today, one of the greatest icons in American cinema turns 87.
It is safe to say that there is nobody quite like Clint Eastwood. His early Westerns turned him into the biggest cowboy of the silver screen, and once he made the decision to start directing, he slowly but steadily gained the reputation as one of the best American directors working today.
The man’s total body of work is quite massive -- as director alone he has 35 feature films under his belt. If you count films he acted in, the number is over 60. Eastwood has certainly been something of a late bloomer, directing his first film, Play Misty for Me at age 41, and then getting better and better.
As actor, his laconic, tough-guy persona has been imitated, parodied, and paid homage to for decades. Lines that have come out of Eastwood’s mouth over the years have become the stuff of legend (“Go ahead, make my day”).
Even now, far from sinking into retirement, Eastwood is not only as active as ever, he is making films that are relevant, controversial, and commercially potent. On his birthday, we commemorate this astonishing artist by giving a (highly subjective) list of his best feature films as director. Bear in mind, his iconic Dollars Trilogy (directed by Sergio Leone) or the original Dirty Harry (directed by Don Siegel) cannot be included in this list -- several different lists might be needed to show the full scope of Eastwood’s work.
10. True Crime (1999)
9. Bird (1988)
8. The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
7. American Sniper (2014)
6. Pale Rider (1985)
5. High Plains Drifter (1973)
4. A Perfect World (1993)
3. Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)
2. Million Dollar Baby (2004)
1. Unforgiven (1992)
Friday, March 28, 2025
