‘Go Ahead, Make My Payday’: The Highest-Grossing Clint Eastwood Movies
In his 65-year Hollywood career, Clint Eastwood has acted in more than 60 movies: 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 89-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.
14. 'Firefox'
Year: 1982
Budget: $21 million
Worldwide gross (inflation adjusted): $143 million
Eastwood as director: Yes
Trivia: The lion's share of the production budget was spent on special effects.
Roll film: In this Cold War espionage yarn, expert U.S. fighter pilot Eastwood plots to steal a top-secret Soviet jet prototype that's not only invisible to radar, but armed with missiles guided by the pilot's mind. In a thumbs-down review for the New York Times, Vincent Canby likened "Firefox" to a "James Bond movie without the girls, a Superman movie without a sense of humor." The flick's not that bad, but if you happen to catch it on late-night cable TV, good luck staying awake.
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.
12. 'Space Cowboys'
Year: 2000
Budget: $60 million
Worldwide gross (inflation adjusted): $151 million
Eastwood as director: Yes
Trivia: Eastwood reportedly nicknamed the movie "Geezer Power."
Roll film: There's nothing earth shattering about the plot: A group of old-coot U.S. Air Force pilots are sent on an emergency space mission to prevent an obsolete Soviet satellite from crashing into the planet. Cue a meteor storm of geriatric jokes and astronaut movie clichés, including the requisite NASA space-fitness training montage.
Cheesy as the ride may be, the cast of over-the-hill astronauts (Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, James Garner and Donald Sutherland) are old acting pros who know how to deliver the right stuff with a wink and a smile.
11. 'Escape From Alcatraz'
Year: 1979
Budget: $8 million
Worldwide gross (inflation adjusted): $154.4 million
Eastwood as director: No
Trivia: The success of the true-life 1962 prison break depicted in the movie is the subject of endless speculation. Did the escaped cons survive the frigid waters and deadly currents of San Francisco Bay, or not? Even the TV show "Mythbusters" tested the probability.
Roll film: Doing time on "The Rock," Frank Morris (Eastwood) and a trio of fellow inmates hatch an elaborate, clandestine scheme to bust out of Alcatraz and sail a jerry-rigged raft across San Francisco Bay to freedom. Methodical, suspenseful and expertly directed by Don Siegel (Eastwood's filmmaking mentor), this was the prison-escape flick most frequently shown on cable TV until "The Shawshank Redemption" came along.
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.
9. 'Sudden Impact'
Year: 1983
Budget: $22 million
Worldwide gross (inflation adjusted): $187.5 million
Eastwood as director: Yes
Trivia: The movie's revenge-bent heroine (dubbed "Dirty Harriet" by fans) is played by Sondra Locke, Eastwood's real-life girlfriend for 13 years, and co-star of six of his films.
Roll film: The only Dirty Harry flick directed by Eastwood himself found the franchise formula cashing-in big time thanks to over-the-top action; cartoonish psycho villains; and for the first time in the series, Clint delivering the character's catchphrase: "Go ahead, make my day."
8. 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'
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.
7. 'The Enforcer'
Year: 1976
Budget: $9 million
Worldwide gross (inflation adjusted): $195.6 million
Eastwood as director: No
Trivia: Though the film's script underwent rewrites by Hollywood pros, the first draft was penned by a pair of San Francisco film students. Determined to sell their work, the duo successfully peddled it in-person to Eastwood's business partner at Carmel, California's Hog's Breath Inn — giving hope to aspiring screenwriters everywhere.
Roll film: Dirty Harry confronts workplace women's lib in the series' third installment, which finds the squinty-eyed inspector reluctantly partnered with a female cop (Tyne Daly). The movie pushes the now-predictable Dirty Harry formula buttons and suffers a bit from a gang of cartoonish villains, but ultimately satisfies with a nice balance of action and laughs. Bonus points for the finale featuring Harry wielding not a .44 Magnum, but a bazooka.
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.
3. 'In the Line of Fire'
Year: 1993
Budget: $40 million
Worldwide gross (inflation adjusted): $222.7 million
Eastwood as director: No
Trivia: The movie's final showdown was filmed at downtown Los Angeles' futuristic Bonaventure Hotel.
Roll film: Decades before Clint called his real-life sanity into question by interviewing an invisible President at the 2012 Republican National Convention, on the silver screen he played a washed-up Secret Service agent charged with protecting the POTUS from a deranged, would-be assassin.
His gun sights set on the Commander In Chief, an exceptionally creepy John Malkovich engages Eastwood and fellow agent René Russo in a twisted cat-and-mouse thriller that makes the movie's two hours fly by.
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.
1. 'Every Which Way but Loose'
Year: 1978
Budget: $5 million
Worldwide gross (inflation adjusted): $328 million
Eastwood as director: No
Trivia: The script was given to Eastwood in hopes he'd pass it on to his pal Burt Reynolds. Surprisingly, Eastwood fancied the project for himself, paving the way for his highest-grossing movie ever.
Roll film: David Ansen's movie review in Newsweek famously asked "One can forgive the orangutan's participation — he couldn't read the script — but what is Eastwood's excuse?" The Hollywood legend has never made apologies for his comedic turn as bare-fisted boxer Philo Beddoe, whose orangutan partner Clyde packs a devastating punch of his own ("Right turn, Clyde"). It's all so moronic and awful, at times you can't help but crack a smile. Eastwood laughed all the way to the bank.