Movies - TV
The 15 Greatest Clint Eastwood Movie Moments
By JACK HAWKINS
Madison County
Clint Eastwood’s Robert Kincaid in “The Bridges Of Madison County” is proof that he’s not just about quick draws and steely stares. He summed up arguably one of his most surprising performances in the closing moments of the movie, conveying a riveting wordless goodbye to Meryl Streep’s Francesca Johnson in the pouring rain.
Unforgiven
“Unforgiven” is one of the greatest westerns of all time because it deconstructs the genre and forces audiences to view good and evil as two parts of an undivided whole. The final confrontation between Eastwood’s William Munny and Gene Hackman’s “Little Bill” Daggett summed up this message to a tee.
A Fistful Of Dollars
The first in “The Man With No Name” trilogy introduced Eastwood and his enigmatic drifter to the world. The “Get three coffins ready” scene captured all the spaghetti western tropes: spitting, staring, and cackling laughter that gives way to an intense, hand-hovering staredown before the inevitable staccato of gunfire.
Every Which Way
Critics were not kind to 1978’s “Every Which Way But Loose,” but its most famous line “Right turn, Clyde,” which Eastwood’s Philo Beddoe used to command the orangutan, Clyde, produced great comedy. One funny scene involved Clyde throwing his right fist into a biker's face, which sent him and his crew sideways like a set of dominoes.
The Good, The Bad...
Eastwood’s defining moment in the Western genre and movie history is found in the Mexican standoff of “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” It produced five minutes of cinematic majesty, replete with a sun-beaten amalgam of sweeping vistas, anxious close-ups, and one of the finest scores in all of cinema.