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”

  3. I love your movie score site. Last weekend I stumbled across it and was immediately intrigued. I too am a bit of a film buff, at least since the age of 12 (1967 – Bonnie & Clyde, Point Blank, The Dirty Dozen,…) But I was really hooked after seeing The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in 1968 at my local drive-in. At that moment I became a life long Eastwood fan.
    I have often been interested by the dichotomy between the “layman” and the “professional” in their preceptions of the quality and value of the medium in all of it’s various representations. I’ve always been suspicious of sites that try to determine the top movies by any particular definition at the exclusion of others. To my knowledge, you are the first to include boxoffice reception, critic response and extended audience enthusiasm, along with peer review. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head!
    Of all the categories you’re utilizing, I’m most curious about boxoffice. Where do you get your base numbers from? I know various sites that track boxoffice (Variety, THR, Mojo, Numbers, Boxoffice) all have solid and consistant figures for the last 30yrs, but anything before 1980 is sketchy. Some sites have conflated theatrical rental with theatrical gross, or have touted final numbers that are actually just the figure the distribs last publically reported. Also, what portion of these numbers actually contain reissue revenue? Before the advent of Home Video, films were often rereleased, and in some cases added substantually to the bottom line. If you keep all theatrical monies lumped as first year of release, does this alter the inflation conversion?
    I also wonder about films that are less endowd then the major Hollywood releases, unable to find an audience until they venture into modes of distribution beyond theatrical. Does DVD rental/sales and streaming have a place or value in any evaluation?
    This is not intended as critic of your wonderful site, I love it. I also understand that it’s a tremendous amont of time and effort, that I truely appreciate. I just grapple with these questions in my efforts to understand Eastwood’s place within the bigger and smaller picture over time .
    In the smaller picture, I’ve always been interested in how Eastwood film’s competed with other films released at the same time, in the 70’s. Especially John Wayne, Charles Bronson, Burt Reynolds, Peter Fonda, Lee Marvin, Steve McQueen, Bruce Lee, James Bond, Billy Jack,… You’ve been of great help with some of these. Thank you.
    I hope you’ll keep up the great work.

    Reply

    1. Hey Wayne. Thanks for the comment. Let’s see basically all my box office information comes from BoxOfficeMojo after 1981. Before 1981 it comes from my massive Variety magazine collection. I have box office stats (listed in box office rentals) from 1938 to 1980. Plus from 1927 to 1945 I have gotten my hands on many of the box office ledgers…with Warner Brothers being the one I do not have.

      My formula does not take into account DVD,VHS sales. With the home entertainment business changing so rapidly I am thinking I need to figure out how to use those numbers. Snowpiercer might not gross 5 million at the box office….but its Video on Demand numbers are very impressive. It might be awhile before I figure out how to put those numbers in the rankings.

      Reply

      1. That is cool about the Good, Bad and the Ugly. As for reissues …they are a pain to calculate. But I have the box office rental numbers for the years the movie was re-released. Gone With The Wind for example was a Top 10 movie of the year many many times…my formula combines those totals into one total.

        As much as I love BoxOfficeMojo.com….they do a terrible job of coming up with box office grosses for movies before 1980. So if you compare the two different stats from the two different sites you will see some major differences….looking at this page…Clint’s Paint Your Wagon is a great example. Variety reports and has reported for years that it has box office RENTALS at 14 million…box office mojo saves the gross was 14 million….box office rentals are what the company got back…not the grosses.
        Cogerson
        Hey Wayne. Thanks for the comment. Let’s see basically all my box office information comes from BoxOfficeMojo after 1981. Before 1981 it comes from my massive Variety magazine collection. I have box office stats (listed in box office rentals) from 1938 to 1980. Plus from 1927 to 1945 I have gotten my hands on many of the box office ledgers…with Warner Brothers being the one I do not have.

        My formula does not take into account DVD,VHS sales. With the home entertainment business changing so rapidly I am thinking I need to figure out how to use those numbers. Snowpiercer might not gross 5 million at the box office….but its Video on Demand numbers are very impressive. It might be awhile before I figure out how to put those numbers in the rankings.

        Reply

  4. I’v loved all of Clint’s movies I even remember Rawhide as a little girl But I’d really like to know where I can find a copy of Thunderbolt And Lightfoot? Nobody seems to know where I can purchase the movie. So could anyone out there help me out?

    Reply

  5. I admire the fact that Clint Eastwood has had a long and productive career. Truth be told, I haven’t seen any of his movies. I never got into westerns and not all gritty cop films appeal to me.

    I do want to see Trouble with the Curve to see how he works with younger actors.

    Reply

    1. Thanks for checking out my Clint page…Alecia I agree with you about the length of his career…..not many people are still headlining movies 50 years into their career and still having people show up to theaters to watch the movie. Trouble with the Curve looks interesting and I am really looking forward to seeing Clint with Justin….should be interesting.

      Reply

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