Clint Eastwood has acted in more than 60 movies in his 70-plus-year career: some good, some bad, some very ugly (“Pink Cadillac,” anyone?). But since Eastwood rose to superstardom in director Sergio Leone’s trilogy of mid-1960s’ “Spaghetti Westerns,” the sole constant has been his box-office bankability.
Not every Eastwood film — whether he starred in the picture, directed it, or both — realizes a financial bonanza, but they very rarely lose money. As sure as Dirty Harry is packing heat that could “blow your head clean off,” the Clint faithful pack theaters for every release, even as the 92-year-old legend’s voice sounds as if he’s gargling gravel.
We kid Clint only because we love him. The man has appeared in more memorable big-screen moments than one can possibly count. In tribute, we’ve lassoed Eastwood’s 15 top-grossing flicks as an actor. We’ve also denoted if Eastwood himself directed the film or not. The box-office grosses are the worldwide take, inflation-adjusted for today’s dollars.
Do you feel lucky, punk? Read on.
15. Million Dollar Baby
Year: 2004
Budget: $30 million
Worldwide gross (inflation adjusted): $141.3 million
Eastwood as director: Yes
Trivia: To convincingly play a female boxer, Hilary Swank underwent extensive ring training and bulked up, adding nearly 20 pounds of muscle to her physique.
Roll film: Eastwood deservedly bagged Best Director and Best Picture Oscar gold for this heartfelt tale about an up-and-coming female fighter (Swank in an Oscar-winning performance) and her gruff, old-school trainer (Eastwood). Despite the occasional flurry of boxing-movie clichés and Eastwood’s sometimes heavy-handed direction, it’s essentially a father-daughter story that ends with an emotional knock out.
Morgan Freeman, as Eastwood’s gym assistant, also scored a victory — climbing out of the ring with an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Note: All box-office numbers are through June 2019.
13. The Bridges of Madison County
Year: 1995
Budget: $22 million
Worldwide gross (inflation adjusted): $148 million
Eastwood as director: Yes
Trivia: By the time of the film’s release, the novel on which it’s based had sold 9.5-million copies — virtually guaranteeing a built-in audience and box office success.
Roll film: Clint trades his Dirty Harry .44 Magnum for a Nikon to portray Robert Kincaid, a National Geographic photographer shooting a spread on Madison County, Iowa’s covered wooden bridges. Not part of the assignment is the whirlwind, four-day tryst he shares with a local housewife (Meryl Streep).
Most fans of Eastwood’s macho roles refused to see the film (and still do). But were outnumbered by those who embraced the softer side of Clint.
10. Gran Torino
Year: 2008
Budget: $25-33 million (estimated)
Worldwide gross (inflation adjusted): $179 million
Eastwood as director: Yes
Trivia: The screenplay originally set the movie in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Tight-fisted director Eastwood, prideful about bringing in his films at or below budget, switched the locale to Detroit, Michigan to take advantage of the state’s then-new film production incentive program, which gave “Gran Torino” a 42-percent tax credit.
Roll film: Eastwood channels Archie Bunker and a dash of Dirty Harry as a recently widowed, retired Detroit auto worker angry at the world. Topping his hate list are the Hmong immigrants who populate his formerly white suburban neighborhood.
Clint lets the racist insults fly and growls at gangbangers to “Get off my lawn.” But ultimately bonds with his young Asian neighbor, and in the process learns a little somethin’ about co-existence and love.
8. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
United Artists / IMDB
Year: 1966
Budget: $1.3 million
Worldwide gross (inflation adjusted): $188.5 million
Eastwood as director: No
Trivia: Not fond of the film’s script, Eastwood was reluctant to do the movie until winning a sweet deal that net him a $250,000 acting fee, a new Ferrari and 10 percent of the profits from the film’s U.S. release.
Roll film: Italian director Sergio Leone’s quintessential “Spaghetti Western” is not only Eastwood’s best Western ever (that’s right, we said it), it also ranks among the top Westerns, period. Clint plays the mysterious “Man with No Name” (aka “The Good”). Rivaled by a cold-as-ice Lee Van Cleef (aka “the Bad”) and comic-relief Eli Wallach (aka “the Ugly”), the disparate trio hunts for buried Confederate treasure in the Civil War-era Wild West.
Hip, highly stylized and set to a rousing music score by Ennio Morricone, the movie’s anti-hero antics helped break the stale mold of traditional American Westerns and made Eastwood a major star.
To see just how obsessive fans of this dusty epic can be, Netflix the 2018 documentary “Sad Hill Unearthed,” which follows a group of über aficionados as they restore the movie’s Sad Hill Cemetery filming location in Northern Spain.
6. Dirty Harry
Year: 1971
Budget: $4 million
Worldwide gross (inflation adjusted): $196.5 million
Eastwood as director: No
Trivia: The role of Dirty Harry was originally offered to several actors, including Frank Sinatra, John Wayne and Robert Mitchum — who all turned it down.
Roll film: In an era of hippie peace demonstrations, Eastwood as San Francisco homicide Inspector “Dirty” Harry Callahan hit theater screens brandishing a Smith & Wesson hand cannon that could “blow your head clean off.”
The film essentially set the mold for an entire genre of vigilante-minded cop movies, yet not without controversy. Critic Roger Ebert called the flick “fascist.” Protestors outside the 1972 Academy Awards ceremony held up signs scrawled with “Dirty Harry is a Rotten Pig.”
Whatever your POV, few deny this hard-nosed classic packs a suspenseful punch — propelled over the top by actor Andy Robinson’s weasel-perfect portrayal of the psychotic serial killer “Scorpio.” He’s also on the receiving end of the film’s famous final threat: “You’ve got to ask yourself a question. Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?”
5. Magnum Force
Year: 1973
Budget: N/A
Worldwide gross (inflation adjusted): $202.4 million
Eastwood as director: No
Trivia: Early in the movie, keep an eye peeled for a pre-“Three’s Company” Suzanne Somers in an uncredited appearance, topless in the scene at the mobster’s pool party.
Roll film: In the second Dirty Harry flick, Eastwood goes mano-a-mano with a group of rogue cops even dirtier than Harry. The anti-vigilante plot element was no accident. After the first film, Eastwood wanted to convey to audiences that his character was not an absolute vigilante above the law.
While it can’t top the 1971 original, “Magnum Force” holds its own with tough action scenes and a solid script penned by John Milius and Michael Cimino. It also benefits from a nice supporting performance by Hal Holbrook, who inspires the movie’s catchphrase: “A man’s got to know his limitations.”
4. Unforgiven
Year: 1992
Budget: $14 million
Worldwide gross (inflation adjusted): $219.8 million
Eastwood as director: Yes
Trivia: Though the movie is set in Wyoming, it was filmed entirely on location in Alberta, Canada, where the crew constructed an entire Old West town set, including the building interiors, not just facades.
Roll film: Eastwood plays Will Munny, a repentant, former killer-for-hire who comes out of retirement because his family needs money. To help him cash in on a bounty, Munny enlists his one-time outlaw partner Ned Logan (a terrific Morgan Freeman).
Unlike countless Westerns that spur the audience to cheer good guys shooting bad guys, “Unforgiven” doesn’t ride the moral high plain. Instead, Eastwood delivers a haunting meditation on the horror of killing and being killed. Academy Awards voters loved it, handing Eastwood two Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director. Gene Hackman also roped Oscar gold for his supporting role as cruel sheriff “Little Bill” Dagget.
2. Any Which Way You Can
Year: 1980
Budget: $15 million
Worldwide gross (inflation adjusted): $236.8 million
Eastwood as director: No
Trivia: The trained orangutan who played Clyde in this film’s predecessor, “Any Which Way but Loose,” had grown too large in size between productions, so the sequel employed two younger, smaller apes to share the role of Eastwood’s primate pal.
Roll film: In the follow-up to 1978’s surprise comedy hit, “Any Which Way but Loose,” Eastwood is back playing a bare-knuckle boxer who bloodies opponents in underground bouts fought for money. Along for the slapstick hijinks are his orangutan sidekick Clyde, girlfriend (Sandra Locke), dim-wit brother (Geoffrey Lewis) and a gang of bumbling bikers named the Black Widows. It’s as silly and sophomoric as it sounds, yet raked in beaucoup bucks at the box office.
Only redeeming quality: The climactic fight scene between Eastwood and an MMA-style brawler is fairly entertaining.
