When Clint Eastwood first debuted on the Western television series Rawhide in 1959, that was only the beginning of his prolific career. Rawhide was where he first charmed domestic audiences, but when Sergio Leone cast Eastwood as the Man with No Name, the lead character of the Dollars Trilogy (also known as The Man with No Name Trilogy), he became an international icon and a symbol of the cinematic American frontier.
The Dollars Trilogy also marked the global emergence of Spaghetti Westerns, which was a European-based movement. These were films often dubbed in Italian but set in the American West. When Sergio Leone released the Dollars Trilogy, Eastwood’s performance helped create new mythologies around what it meant to be an American during this period, setting new standards for depictions of masculinity. While many Western films were to follow, the genre was completely changed by Leone and Eastwood, leading us to movies like Django Unchained and The Magnificent Seven.
Updated: November 2022: To keep this article fresh and relevant by adding more information and entries, this article has been updated by Dylan Reber.
The Man With No Name was Eastwood’s first leading role in a feature film, but it certainly wasn’t his last. Outside of Western genre films, Eastwood also starred in the movie Dirty Harry in 1971, which revolutionized the genre of police films and would lead to four sequels over twenty years. But he couldn’t stay away from the genre of films that launched his career, and would continue to work in Westerns, whether it involved acting, singing, directing, or producing. Without further ado, here are the best Clint Eastwood Westerns, ranked.
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13 Paint Your Wagon (1969)
Paramount Pictures
Starting with perhaps Eastwood’s strangest film, Paint Your Wagon is an oddball musical Western that turns the genre’s tight-lipped stoicism on its head. If you ever wanted to see Eastwood in a lighthearted take on the lawlessness of the American Old West, this is the movie for you. He stars opposite Lee Marvin and Jean Seberg as Sylvester “Pardner” Newel (and does his own singing to boot). The film is particularly interesting for using the California “gold rush” as a historical backdrop. Check it out if the other Westerns on this list are a bit too violent for your liking.
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12 Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970)
Universal Pictures
Two Mules for Sister Sara isn’t the most well-known Clint Eastwood movie, but it still managed to captivate many fans of the genre. Set directly after the American Civil War, Eastwood stars as a soldier whose unlikely sidekick, a nun, isn’t what she seems to be. Reminiscent of the storylines seen in old Hollywood movies, Eastwood breaks free of the constraints imposed in his previous roles and is no longer a lone cowboy that serves as an antihero.
11 Cry Macho (2021)
Warner Bros.
Clint Eastwood saddles up for his first Western since 1992’s Unforgiven. Based on Richard Nash’s 1975 novel of the same name, Cry Macho may not be your typical Clint Eastwood film; rather, it signifies a modernized twist on the genre (per The New Republic). When a former rodeo star and washed-up horse breeder is tasked with saving his ex-boss’s son from his alcoholic mother, the pair form an unlikely bond on their journey back home. Cry Macho is ostensibly a tale of redemption for Mike Milo (Eastwood), as he helps forge a second chance for Rafa (Eduardo Minett) by teaching him how to be a good man.
10 Hang ‘Em High (1968)
United Artists
9 For a Few Dollars More (1965)
Produzioni Europee Associati
For a Few Dollars More is the second part of the Dollars Trilogy, the popular trilogy that launched Eastwood’s career globally. Reliant on the tropes that have appeared in Western movies since the genre was created, it does run into clichés at times. However, the villain of the film is absolutely wicked, a force which the Man With No Name must confront again and again as the movie coils towards its violent climax. Historically, the film also presented a shift in how bounty hunters were perceived; once abhorred, they now were depicted as heroic on the big screen.
8 Honkytonk Man (1982)
Clint Eastwood is the full package. While best known for his traditional films, Eastwood has been in quite a few musicals, too. In Honkytonk Man, he plays a singer dying of tuberculosis, traveling to Nashville with his nephew. His dream is to become a famous singer, but, with the Great Depression ravaging the nation, it seems almost impossible. It’s a laid-back movie quite sweet in tone, and Eastwood and his son Scott play the main roles.
7 The Beguiled (1971)
Clint Eastwood made five films with the great director Don Siegel, including Dirty Harry and Escape From Alcatraz, but The Beguiled often goes overlooked (at least until it was remade recently by director Sofia Coppola). A gothic, melodramatic Western unlike any other, The Beguiled perfectly manifests a consistent fear and insecurity in both Eastwood and Siegel. Eastwood, of course, credited the commercial failure of the film to him being “emasculated” in it, but that’s precisely what makes it so interesting.
The Beguiled was a critical success overseas, and has been recently reevaluated as a strange, baroque deconstruction of masculinity in the Wild West. The film follows the wounded Corporal John ‘McBee’ McBurney during the Civil War, when he is brought into the Miss Martha Farnsworth Seminary for Young Ladies to recover. He’s a Union soldier, stuck in Mississippi, surrounded by repressed women and girls, and the film becomes a psychosexual nightmare as suspicions, jealousies, and lust boil over into violence.
6 High Plains Drifter (1973)
High Plains Drifter, directed by Eastwood himself, recounts the tale of a mysterious nameless drifter who coasts into a small mining town. The drifter is contracted by the town to protect them from a gang of ruffians soon to be released from prison. Though he accepts the mission, he has an ulterior motive: he has come to settle an old score. High Plains Drifter has been praised for stepping outside the box of Eastwood’s typical westerns, as he is not playing an antihero protagonist so much as a downright villain. It’s a surprisingly dark film which also features a memorable performance from Verna Bloom.
5 The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
In The Outlaw Josey Wales, Eastwood directs and plays the title role. Wales is, as the name of the movie tells us, an outlaw, one who embarks on a fiery revenge quest after his wife and son are murdered by a brutal, pro-Union militia. Wales’s trail of vengeance eventually catches up with him when a $5,000 bounty gets placed on his head. This film is one of Eastwood’s best American productions, and an excellent example of his skill as a burgeoning director.
4 Pale Rider (1985)
Released in 1985, Pale Rider is a revisionist Western film that nods to the traditions of the genre. At the time, it seemed like the Western movies that were once dearly loved were on the decline, and had instead been eclipsed by the popularity of crime and thriller movies. However, this great ’80s Western proved that there was still gold to mine from the genre, and was a big hit at the box office. Clint Eastwood starred in a role where he seemed to be almost something divine, like Death, which is a nod to the title’s reference to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Eastwood was involved in the film as an actor, producer, and director. Pale Rider received a glowing review from Roger Ebert.
3 A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
Jolly Film
The first movie in the Dollars Trilogy sets the tone for what’s to come, brilliantly establishing the main character, and is a classic demonstration of Leone’s visual style. With close-up shots sprinkled throughout the narrative, the characters’ facial expressions and slight movements indicate emotional states without recourse to language.
A Fistful of Dollarstook direct inspiration from the movie Yojimbo by Japanese auteur Akira Kurosawa, which led to the film being tied up in litigation for three years before it could be released to the public. Kurosawa’s lawsuit was settled out of court. A Fistful of Dollars is now considered an unofficial remake of Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, but with an American setting and an Italian director. It forged the way for a new heroic type in the western genre, one that blurs the lines between morality and selfishness.
2 Unforgiven (1992)
By 1992, Clint Eastwood had found his voice as both a director and an actor. Unforgiven is an homage to his mentors: Leone and Siegel, directors who had previously mentored him. With Unforgiven, he directed what is widely regarded as the best western movie of all time. The film is notable for the way it shows its characters living in a moral grey area: a world in which people aren’t bound by strict ethical and social codes. Unforgiven became the third Western film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards, and was later added to the National Film Registry. It also inspired a Japanese Samurai remake in 2012 starring Ken Watanabe.
1 The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (1966)
Produzioni Europee Associate Releasing
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is the best-known film in the Dollars Trilogy. There’s a pretty good reason for that. The cinematography builds up the suspense in Leone’s classic style, while the soundtrack adds the perfect ambiance. The film is best known for its tense, stand-off finale, but it has plenty of shootouts and trick shots throughout to keep the viewer entertained. The main characters are all antiheroes, leading viewers to decide for themselves who is right and who is wrong.
It’s an immersive experience, one hard to look away from. Throughout the process of making the movie, Eastwood would have minimal contact with Leone, but somehow everything came together perfectly, from the brilliant cinematography, Ennio Morricone score, stark performances, and epic scope. It’s a masterful film and the best Western Eastwood ever starred in.
