Clint Eastwood Movies

Want to know the best Clint Eastwood movies?  How about the worst Clint Eastwood movies?  Curious about Bill Murray’s box office grosses or which Clint Eastwood movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Clint Eastwood movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.

Clint Eastwood is one of my favorite movie stars. Eastwood started appearing in movies in the mid 1950s, he gained his first notoriety playing Rowdy Yates on the television show Rawhide from 1959 to 1964. During a break from Rawhide, Eastwood agreed to star in a low budget western that was being filmed in Italy called A Fistful of Dollars (1964). The movie was a huge hit overseas, as result Eastwood became a star playing the “The Man With No Name”. He returned in two more spaghetti westerns directed by Sergio Leone. My favorite Eastwood movie, the classic The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966) was the last of the trilogy.

In 1971 Eastwood played Detective Harry Callahan in the hit Dirty Harry. Dirty Harry turned Eastwood into a mega superstar. He would end up playing Harry Callahan in four sequels. During the 1970s and 1980s, Eastwood appeared in hit movie after hit movie. Having established himself as a solid investment, he talked Warner Brothers into letting him direct the movie Play Misty For Me (1971). The low budget movie turned into a success and the career of Clint Eastwood the director was launched. As Clint approached the age of 60, his movies were not receiving much box office success. Things looked like they were slowing down for him, when he starred, produced, and directed Unforgiven 1992. Unforgiven earned Eastwood his first Oscar® nomination for Best Actor, and Oscar® wins for Best Director and Best Picture.

Over the last forty years, Eastwood has appeared in less movies and concentrated on directing. In 2004 he starred, produced and directed Million Dollar Baby. This female boxing movie earned Eastwood his second-Best Actor nomination and won two more Oscars® for Best Director and Best Picture.  His IMDb page shows over 90 acting and directing credits since 1955. This page will rank Clint Eastwood movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information. Television shows, uncredited roles, cameos, and a handful of his pre-A Fistful of Dollars were not included in the rankings.

Clint Eastwood as "Dirty Harry" in 1983's Sudden Impact
Clint Eastwood as “Dirty Harry” in 1983’s Sudden Impact

Clint Eastwood Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews and awards.

Newsweek photo

Clint Eastwood Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table

The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.

  • Sort Clint Eastwood movies by co-stars of his movies.
  • Sort Clint Eastwood movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Clint Eastwood movies by yearly domestic box office rank
  • Sort Clint Eastwood movies how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
  • Sort by how many Oscar® nominations and how many Oscar® wins each Clint Eastwood movie received.
  • Sort Clint Eastwood movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score.  UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.

Clint Eastwood Adjusted World Wide Box Office Grosses

My Personal Top Ten Clint Eastwood Movies in Alphabetical Order

1. A Fistful of Dollars (1964)….the movie that turned a television supporting player into a superstar movie actor

2.  The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966)….the last and best of the Sergio Leone spaghetti western trilogy

3.  In The Line of Fire (1993)….I re-watch this one about every other year….Clint and John Malkovich get better with each passing year

4. Kelly’s Heroes (1970)….this is closing in on 50 years old…but it is still a fun and entertaining movie to watch

5.  The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)…the first time Clint demonstrated that he could direct a classic movie

6. Paint Your Wagon (1967)…..I am not much of a musical person…..but I love watching his Clint/Lee Marvin musical

7. Play Misty For Me (1971)…. Clint made Fatal Attraction years before Michael Douglas did

8. Space Cowboys (2000)…Clint, Tommy Lee Jones, the late great James Garner and a Kelly Heroes’ reunion with Donald Sutherland…what more could you want from a movie?

9.  Sudden Impact (1983)….gotta include a Dirty Harry movie in this list…..my favorite of the 5 Dirty Harry movies

10. Unforgiven (1992)…. Clint’s masterpiece….gets better with each new viewing

Check out Clint Eastwood‘s career compared to current and classic actors.  Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.

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156 thoughts on “Clint Eastwood Movies”

      1. BRUCE:

        1 Good to see Clint getting some more comments as he’s one of my own favourites.

        2 Here is the range of ACTUAL domestic box office figures that I’ve seen for two of his films:

        COGERSON
        Any Which Way You Can/94.2
        Every Which Way but Loose/85,2

        MOJO
        Any Which Way You Can/70.7
        Every Which Way but Loose/85.2

        NUMBERS
        Any Which Way You Can/70.7
        Every Which Way but Loose/104.3

        Figures rounded up.

        3 For consistency I always take your figures for inclusion in my own data base because I’ve seen the other two sources massively contradict each other and I know that you have little faith in Mojo’s pre-1982 figures where they actually give figures at all.

        4 Certainly the 7.1 actual domestic gross from both Mojo and the Numbers for Clint/Burton’s Where Eagles Dare appears ridiculous for what was declared a solid worldwide hit in its day and seems to me more like a rental figure. Your own actual gross figure of 15.8 seems sensible and indeed would not be inconsistent with a rental of 7.1

        5 Anyway do you have any idea where Mojo/Numbers get their figures from and why there is often great inconsistencies between these two sources?

        Reply

        1. Hey Bob
          1. Clint is a decent view getter for me….but he does not generate many comments.
          2. Well…I see why my Any Which Way You Can number is off….I used the rental number….and estimated the gross. With Every Which Way But Loose I used Mojo’s actual gross. I think my number is too high…..and I will have it fixed before you wake up. Rentals for Any were $51 million…and rentals for Every were $40 million….so I am 100% sure I have it wrong.
          3. Clint was one of the first pages we did…..at the time I took their pre-1980 numbers as gospel….it was with Clint’s movies…especially Paint Your Wagon…that I realized their numbers were very very wrong.
          4. I can not prove it….but I have noticed that over the last couple of years….that The Numbers numbers have started to get in line with my numbers….before they would list the rental number as the gross……now they sometimes list rental and an adjusted number…and surprise their adjusted number looks close to mine. Then again…they could be thinking the same thing about my numbers…..lol.
          5. As for the inconsistencies….I am sure all the sites calculate the numbers differently….using their own rules and logic…which causes the numbers to be different. I think one of the strengths of this website….is we are willing to acknowledge that these (for pre-1980 movies) are educated estimates……and that we have been wrong before and we will be wrong again. Mojo will not admit or change anything. I love their website…..but it took them over a year to take Michael Caine off the Danny Collins (somebody over there got Caine and Plummer mixed up) page….and they still have not fixed the obvious Clint mistakes.
          Thanks for making me see my error on Any Which Way You Can
          🙂

          Reply

          1. 1 Thanks for the detailed explanation Bruce. Mojo operators would make good Government officials as they too seldom admit their wrong. I should know as I was one !

            2 Apart from consistency of source I prefer to take YOUR figures even for post 1982 grosses as I think you use the last known actual ticket prices whereas Mojo seem to base their adjustments on estimates of prices up to about a year ahead of the Cogerson calculations.

            3 For me one of the drawbacks of that method is that Mojo often changes its estimates a couple of times in the a year; and whilst they can apparently alter every figure on their site with one press of a button I don’t have that facility and would have to continually manually adjust all grosses for about 40 stars which would be a bit of a night,mare.

            4 It is still worthwhile checking all available sources though as a glaring inconsistency can draw attention to the need to review figures. Another big difference in Mojo/The Numbers figures can be found in their ACTUAL grosses for Travolta’s Saturday Night Fever – Mojo94.3/The Numbers 139.5 I can find no Cogerson actual gross to guide me in the matter and as you’ve found out in your sterling efforts re Paint Your Wagon there’s little point in asking either source about the matter.

            5 The good news is that all three of you are within a few dollars of each other for the actual gross for Travolta’s Grease which is a fine achievement for a film that had massive earnings way back in 197879. As a famous politician said “We live in interesting times!”

            BOB

          2. Hey Bob.
            1. I agree the Mojo operators would make good government officials. I give them credit after about 6 e-mails….they did take Michael Caine off their Danny Collins page.
            2. I guess I should not rip them too hard….WoC had a dream in which they contacted us about wanting to incorporate our classic box office grosses into their page…..who knows…maybe one day..UMR will be under the umbrella of Mojo and IMDb…as the same company owns both of those websites.
            3. One day we will have the one button to push method….and then we will play around with changing the numbers more often….lol. Our hope is that the 2016 average ticket cost will stay close to the 2015 average ticket cost….that way we will not feel obligated to update these pages again….I hope it is not until 2017 that a massive update is required….at the rate of my updates…I might be finished just in time to do it all over again.
            4. Hmmmmm…..Saturday Night Fever…..I have it listed at …..$94.21 million in actual gross which is Mojo’s number……yet if I did my calculation using the rental number times the multiplier the number would be insane….as it’s box office rental number is $74.10 million…which would translate to over 3/4 quarters of a billion…..$757.00 million. Is that what The Numbers has? Granted….that $757.00 million does not take into account the PG re-release and R rated re-release that were very popular too…it gives ALL the rentals credit for the year it was released. I guess when I did the Travolta page…back in 2011….I decided to stay closer to the expert Mojo number versus going out on a limb and saying Saturday Night Fever was twice as popular as Mojo was reporting. Now you have me thinking…$74 million on rentals…and yet the gross is only $94 million…..that makes no sense.
            5. Glad we agree on Grease…..but now I think I have Saturday Night Fever wrong.
            🙂
            5.

  2. Thanks for the thorough analysis of Mr. Eastwood’s career films, thus far. When you think he would retire he just keeps popping back up with another outstanding film. I think he’s one of the longest lasting box office draws in the industry.

    As luck would have it, my girlfriend was fortunate to play in his worst film–Pink Cafillac! (She played the bail-bond office secretary), and told me that Clint was such a friendly man on the set.

    Reply

    1. Thanks for sharing that information. I will have to look up that film and pay attention to that role.

      Reply

  3. Happy 86th birthday, Mr. Eastwood!

    Have a wonderful birthday.

    Coincidentally because it was scheduled on TCM last night anyway, I finally saw Kelly’s Heroes for the first time. I wrote a review of it on Letterboxd. Great fun. Before that, When Eagles dare , again on TCM.

    Looking forward to my Robert Ryan requested page. I already made a list on letterboxd with 14 favourite Robert Ryan films – not ranked.

    Flora

    Reply

    1. Hey Flora….about to sign on to Letterboxd and check out your reviews. As well as checking out your Robert Ryan list. So did you like Kelly’s Heroes? That is one of my favorite Clint movies. Hard to believe Clint is 86. Thanks for the visit.

      Reply

  4. My Top 3 Clint Eastwood Movies
    1, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
    2. Kelly’s Heroes
    3. Where Eagles Dare

    Reply

    1. Hey Dana H…..you have listed 2 of my Top 3 Clint movies…with Unforgiven knocking out Where Eagles Dare on my Top 3…..great minds thinking alike…lol.

      Reply

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