Top Ten Clint Eastwood Westerns Review

1. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (1966): The brilliant final installment in The Man With No Name Trilogy stars Clint Eastwood as the Good, Lee Van Cleef as the Bad, and Eli Wallach as the Ugly. Resist the edited, pan-and-scan versions, and revel in director Sergio Leone's jaw-dropping shot compositions and the brilliant score by Ennio Morricone in the uncut, widescreen edition. Available separately or as part of The Man With No Name Trilogy from MGM Home Video.

2. Unforgiven (1992): At the 1993 Academy Awards, Clint copped the gold for Best Film and Best Director for this  revisionist Western. It was an acknowledgement that he was not just an icon, but also a great filmmaker. Not to mention a fine actor, as his portrayal of retired gunman William Munny will attest. Gene Hackman won Best Supporting Actor as the evil Little Bill. A Classic American Western. Available as a two-disc special edition from Warner Home Video.  

3. The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976): Adapted by Phillip Kaufman from the novels by Forrest Carter, Clint has a name in this one, and portrays a much more sympathetic hero than in his previous Western, High Plains Drifter, if no less bent on vengeance. With Chief Dan George. DVD available from Warner Home Video.

4. Fistful of Dollars (1964): From the stylized opening titles with Ennio Morricone's iconic theme music, director Sergio Leone reinvents the Western with bold strokes, and makes Clint Eastwood an international movie star. Although American critics were largely repulsed by the unrelenting violence, audiences ate it up, and the Spaghetti Western genre flourished for the next ten years. Available on DVD from MGM Home Video.

5. For a Few Dollars More (1965): I actually prefer this to it's predecessor, but since it's a sequel, it lacked the cultural impact of Fistful of Dollars. Still, Leone's direction is more audacious, Ennio Morricone's score is even better, and the addition of Lee Van Cleef adds to the heady brew of over-the-top action and wild camera angles. Eastwood's performance is more assured here. MGM Home Video.

6. The Beguiled (1971): Not a Western, per se, more like a psychosexual gothic melodrama, with Clint as a wounded Union soldier who takes refuge at a Southern girl's school. Combining soap opera, eroticism, and horror, it was released the same year as Dirty Harry and Play Misty for Me, and was unjustly neglected. Director Don Siegel's favorite of all of his films, and one of mine as well. From the novel by Thomas Cullinan. Available on DVD from Universal Home Entertainment.

7. High Plains Drifter (1973): Clint directs himself as a nastier variation on The Man With No Name character, who rapes, pillages, and paints the town red exacting his ultra-violent revenge upon cowardly citizens and bad hombres alike. Geoffrey Lewis, veteran of many a Clint pic, bellows the immortal line, "Who are you?!?" Available on DVD separately, or as part of the Clint Eastwood: Western Icon collection from Universal Home Entertainment.

8. Pale Rider (1985): Producer/director/star Eastwood made this at a time when Westerns were at an all-time low in terms of popularity, as a cross between the "Man With No Name" films and George Stevens's Shane. Clint is the title character, a ghostly figure who rides into town to defend the downtrodden tin-panners from the big miners. The excellent supporting cast includes Michael Moriarity, Carrie Snodgrass, and Chris Penn. DVD available from Warner Home Video.

9.  Hang 'em High (1968): Clint returned to the US to star in what is essentially an American-made Spaghetti Western, about a man who survives a hanging to wreak vengeance on the men that strung him up. Instead of obscure Italian actors with dubbed voices, Eastwood's co-stars include such well-known character actors as Ed Begley, Pat Hingle, Ben Johnson, Bruce Dern, Dennis Hopper, and LQ Jones, with Inger Stevens (The Farmer's Daughter)as his love interest. Director Ted Post was no Leone, but Eastwood worked with him again in 1973's Magnum Force. MGM Home Video.

10. Joe Kidd (1972): Solid if uninspired shoot-'em-up from director John Sturges and screenwriter Elmore Leonard, with Clint as the good guy and Robert Duvall as the bad guy. Given the above-the-line talent, it should have been a classic. Universal Home Entertainment.

Honorable mention:

Rawhide (1959-1965): OK, it's not a movie, but this long-running Western TV series was the launching pad for Clint's film career. His portrayal of "Rowdy Yates" put him on the map, led to his casting in Fistful of Dollars, and the rest, as they say, is history. WGN padded out their programming line-up with reruns of this show for years, but now you can dig the first two seasons on digitially remastered DVDs from Paramount Home Video.

Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970): It's the African Queen out West, with Clint in the Bogart role, and Shirley McLaine in the Hepburn part, but with a twist: she's a cigar-smoking nun. This high-concept Western definitely has it moments, and boasts solid direction from Don Siegel, Eastwood's favorite director (besides himself, that is). Available on DVD separately, or as part of the Clint Eastwood: Western Icon collection from Universal Home Entertainment.

Bronco Billy (1980): A presonal fave of Eastwood's, a sweet little fable about a modern day Quixote who starts up a Wild West Show, populated with familiar faces from Clint's stock company of character actors. Highly underrated, funny, and well worth seeking out on DVD. Warner Home Video.

Coogan's Bluff (1968): Fish-out-of-water story about a New Mexico Sheriff tracking down a fugitive in the Greenwich Village hippie scene. Inspired the McCloud TV series. Universal Home Video.

Paint Your Wagon! (1969): While Clint and Lee Marvin are much better at beating people up than belting out show tunes, they get to do both here. This legendary cinematic disaster is actually fairly enjoyable viewed forty years later. Directed by Joshua Logan, and co-starring the lovely Jean Seberg (Breathless), Ray Walston, and Harve Presnell. Paramount Home Video.

Ambush at Cimarron Pass (1958): Clint shows promise in an early role as a angry young Confederate soldier who learns a few things over the course of this 73-minute B-Western, which Eastwood has derided as "probably the lousiest Western ever made." It's actually pretty good for what it is, and was given a re-release in the mid-'60s after the success of the "Man With No Name" films. Unavailable on DVD, it shows up occasionally on Encore's Westerns Channel, albeit in a pan-and-scan version that loses the original's "Regalscope" widescreen process.