Clint Eastwood the director, appreciation thread

I think Richard Jewell, American Sniper, and Invictus are all great films he directed, except I wouldn't call them "favorites". They're all high quality either way. I liked them a lot. Outlaw Josey Wales, Pale Rider, and Unforgiven are all great Westerns. I'd say my favorite film Eastwood directed is Outlaw Josey Wales. I'd love to watch Richard Jewell and Unforgiven again too.

I wrote this going between here and IMDb, and while fielding requests from children, so it may come across as a disjointed post. Sorry about that.

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He hid in the forest, read books with great zeal
He loved Che Guevera, a revolutionary veal
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Quoting myself

It's going to stream in late Dec, but Guillermo del Toro's tweet only made the longing to see this in a theater more intense. He wrote...

And I just received an email notice, it's coming to town for Thanksgiving week, one theater (not a Regal) starting next Wed. I tell you that just made my day; I bought my ticket already and I'm raring to go... thank you, local theater people.

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Completed Extant Filmographies: Luis Buñuel, Federico Fellini, Satyajit Ray, Fritz Lang, Andrei Tarkovsky, Buster Keaton, Yasujirō Ozu - (for favorite directors who have passed or retired, 10 minimum)

LOVED A Perfect World...my favorite Kevin Costner performance

After watching his 'final film', here's my Top 15 films directed by Clint Eastwood:

1. Unforgiven (1992)
2. The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
3. A Perfect World (1993)
4. Invictus (2009)
5. Bird (1988)
6. Mystic River (2003)
7. Sully (2016)
8. High Plains Drifter (1973)
9. Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)
10. Million Dollar Baby (2004)
11. Tightrope (1984)*
12. Juror #2 (2024)
13. Gran Torino (2008)
14. The Mule (2018)
15. Pale Rider (1985)

Nice, and I like the photo arrangement too. Here's mine
1. Unforgiven - his pièce de résistance, and my all-time favorite western
2. Million Dollar Baby - I've never shed more tears in a theater, it wrecked me
3. Letters From Iwo Jima
4. High Plains Drifter
5. The Outlaw Josey Wales
6. A Perfect World
7. The Bridges of Madison County
8. Mystic River
9. Gran Torino
10. Juror #2
11. Hereafter - I know, I know, what the heck is this doing here? What can I say, I'm one of those rare cats who found it beautiful and profound.
12. Richard Jewell
13. Play Misty for Me
14. Breezy - Purchased this during Kino's 50% sale. It's so much of its time, and yet, it still holds up remarkably well
15. Honkytonk Man

Pale Rider and Bird are in the top 20

No one likes the Clint Eastwood film I like.

Which?

You, of all people, should know because I talk about it.

If it's The 15:17 to Paris, then, no.

Well, I'm sure someone out there likes it, but it's at the very bottom for me.

Nope it came out in 1980. Clint directed it and starred in it.

Its a favorite because its sentimental to me. One of two films I remember my father took my sister and me to see.

I grew up with parents who watched old Clint Eastwood films. I enjoy the Pre 1985 films.

Let me go look at the handy list I made just this year (I revisited a lot of his pieces in anticipation of Juror #2)

Oh, Bronco Billy, I like Bronco Billy, it's in the 20th slot on my list. It was one of my dad's favorites. Good flick.

The very first film I remember seeing was For a Few Dollars More (1965), it was released in the U.S. in summer of 1967. I seen it at the drive-in with my parents...I was in my pajamas

I would say the oldest film of his I have seen is A Fistfull of Dollars. I remember watchinghim in Mavrick reruns. As far as him as a director, Dirty Harry was the first one I have seen.

Eastwood is a quandary to me. I definitely appreciate his ability as one of the ultimate, multi-faceted film makers, but, most of the movies I have seen seemed to reflect such a bleak view of life, which seems to be echoed in pubic statements I have heard, that I don't want to live any of them. You'd think that all that success, a house at Carmel-By-The-Sea (I've been in that area and it's mega-bucks; Eastwood was once the mayor there), and all that money would have mellowed him, but he always seems to have a very hard view of life that I don't get. You'd think that HE was a punch-drunk fighter with a busted nose.

My first feature was either The Good, the Bad and the Ugly or Paint Your Wagon, at the drive-in.

Or, on the small screen, I could have seen Revenge of the Creature as a youngin', I was always watching those "Creature Features" types. He was only in it for one scene, and he didn't really leave much of an impression.

See him in a cameo as a pilot, fire-bombing a giant spider in Tarantula.

There are five films where Eastwood plays San Francisco police detective "Dirty Harry" Callahan. He only directed one of them, the fourth in the series, Sudden Impact (1983), most famous for the line, "Go ahead, make my day" and the only of them to feature his longtime paramour Sandra Locke. It is also the only one of the five set largely out of San Francisco, filmed down the coast in Santa Cruz. The original Dirty Harry was directed by his mentor, Don Siegel.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

I have seen all the Dirty Harry movies, but it's been long ago.

Sometime in the mid 70s we got HBO in our city and that's how and where I first saw Dirty Harry. I watched that thing so many times over the years - If I was bumming around the house and it was on, I'd grab some pizza and a pop (or whatever we had in the fridge) and kick back with Harry.

Along with Jaws and Jesus Christ Superstar, it's probably my most watched movie.

I'm glad he got to direct at least one of them, seems only right - and it's a decent flick. A little comic booky at the start (that's probably the one that inspired Sledge Hammer the most, at least at the start, with the tag line, etc) before it settled into darker, more serious territory by the end (with a bit of a nod to Hitchcock and Strangers on a Train?) - I gave it a 3.5 out of 5 and would rank it 3rd in the series, behind the original and Magnum Force.