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Next to John Wayne, Clint Eastwood might be the most beloved Western movie star of all time, and much of it is thanks to his memorable roles. Unlike Wayne, who mostly starred as the hero in traditional Westerns, Eastwood often took on darker roles in more morally ambiguous Westerns. Despite this, both became genre icons.
Clint Eastwood took on roles as an often extremely violent Western hero, one who would shoot first and ask questions later. Also, unlike John Wayne, who mostly acted in Westerns and war movies, Eastwood took on a variety of roles in action movies and dramas, and his characters there remained memorable.
Hogan - Two Mules For Sister Sara (1970)
In the 1970 movie Two Mules for Sister Sara, Clint Eastwood plays a former Union soldier from the American Civil War who saves a woman who bandits are sexually assaulting. He kills the bandits and agrees to take her to safety after learning she is a nun and has knowledge of a French garrison he was hired to attack.
This is a role in which Hogan agrees to help Sister Sara (Shirley MacLaine) for selfish reasons, while harboring violent intentions toward the French garrison she revealed to him. However, as the film progresses, it is Sara who brings about a surprising change in Hogan, and Eastwood delivers this performance brilliantly.
This ranks up there with his spaghetti Westerns when it comes to his down-and-dirty cowboy, but one in which he and Sara realize they have been using each other all along and find happiness in the end. It was a twisting and turning story, and Eastwood and MacLaine had incredible chemistry throughout.
Preacher - Pale Rider (1985)
Pale Rider has Clint Eastwood in one of his best roles, but it is slightly held down by the fact that he played an almost identical character a decade earlier in an even better movie. In this film, Eastwood plays a character known as Preacher, but in the end, he is a man representing death itself.
In the previous decade, Eastwood had played The Stranger in High Plains Drifter, and the movie hinted that he was supernatural. The problem with Pale Rider is that it almost pounded home the truth, rather than leaving it up to the viewer. Despite this, Eastwood delivered the same outstanding performance in both films.
The Preacher rode into the town, helped free it from the grip of evil gangs, and killed anyone who got in his way before leaving. He was never a blank slate, and brought his same wry humor to the often horror-centric role, all while plowing down his enemies as the personification of death.
Walt Kowalski - Gran Torino (2008)
In 2008, Clint Eastwood played Walt Kowalski in Gran Torino. The result was a performance that helped popularize the "get off my lawn" quote, often said by older people to the younger generation. This was a massive turnaround for the one-time rebellious cowboy actor, who now played a grumpy man living in the past.
However, while Walt was a man living in the past, who didn't appreciate or understand modern-day society, there was still some of that anger and dark humor behind his eyes. Walt was just as violent and aggressive as Dirty Harry, though this time he could take people by surprise because of his age and station in life.
He was also a character who lived by his principles, even as it seemed to be out of touch with modern-day society. He was a character who stood by his word. Gran Torino was a polarizing movie at the time, but it was actually a nuanced look at prejudice, racism, and redemption. Walt was the centerpiece of that story.
Jed Cooper - Hang 'Em High (1968)
In an early Clint Eastwood movie role, he played a retired lawman named Jed Cooper in the Oklahoma Territory in 1889, accused of rustling cattle. A posse doesn't believe his innocence and hangs him, only for Marshall Dave Bliss to rescue him and take him to safety. When the actual rustler is caught, a judge sets him free.
The judge then names him a marshal and asks him not to kill the men who lynched him, but instead to arrest them and bring them in to stand trial. Jed was an interesting character for Eastwood to portray, as he was a lawman who was wronged, and now he has to find a way to deal with the men who wronged him.
It is a masterful performance, as even while wanting revenge, he never loses his sense of right and wrong and still tries to do things the proper way. The character's journey also blends with the idea of frontier justice versus a real court system, and it is Jed who stands for the letter of the law.
Frank Morris - Escape From Alcatraz (1979)
In 1979, Clint Eastwood took on a role in the prison drama Escape from Alcatraz. In the film, Eastwood teamed with his Dirty Harry director, Don Siegel, to tell the true story of Frank Lee Morris and the 1962 prisoner escape from Alcatraz Island, a facility deemed inescapable.
Eastwood played Frank Morris in the movie, a burglar and escape artist who was one of the few to escape from the prison, though the film left it open whether he survived. This was a prison movie in which Eastwood played a criminal who wasn't as bad as the warden who ran the prison.
Eastwood does a good job of making the criminal imprisoned for burglary into a sympathetic character, but he is also someone whom no one should mess with. While Eastwood mastered these characters, he plays Frank with less bravado than in previous films, and he proved he deserved more dramatic roles in the future.
The Stranger - High Plains Drifter (1973)
High Plains Drifter allowed Clint Eastwood to take on his most complex and interesting role of his career. This was a movie Eastwood directed and starred in, and in the end, it was hinted that Eastwood's character wasn't human but the spirit of vengeance for a man the film's villains had wrongly killed.
What made High Plains Drifter so much better than the later Pale Rider is that the movie allows the viewers to decide what they want to believe about The Stranger. This also meant that Eastwood had to carry it all on his shoulders, showing in his performance what he wanted viewers to think, and he was masterful in this role.
From his mannerisms to little glances at things around him, The Stranger always felt a little otherworldly and like a man out of time. He didn't give anything away and let his performance speak for itself; as a result, it remains one of his best Westerns.
William Munny - Unforgiven (1992)
By 1992, the Western genre was in bad shape. Fans had mainly stopped caring about it, and only more action-packed or juvenile movies were succeeding. Clint Eastwood changed that with his masterful Oscar-winning Unforgiven. Directing and starring in the film, Eastwood played a retired outlaw named William Munny.
This was as much a story about the end of the Westerns as it was about love for the genre. Munny wants to live his last days in peace, counting down the days until he can join his deceased wife in the afterlife. However, when the violent town sheriff (Gene Hackman) kills his friend, he seeks vengeance.
This is a role where Eastwood showed nuance and a calm demeanor. William is tired of the game and wants to be left in peace. However, he is also someone who won't let people hurt him and his friends, and when he shows his anger, it is not with thunder, but he slams the message home just the same.
Josey Wales - The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
Clint Eastwood showed his range when he took on the role of the title character in The Outlaw Josey Wales. This was another film that Eastwood both directed and starred in, in which he plays a Confederate soldier who refuses to surrender to the Union during the American Civil War and goes on to become a feared gunman.
This was a movie where Eastwood delivered the performance most people know him for: he barely speaks, and when he does, something bad is going to happen. In this movie, he seeks revenge for the death of his family while bounty hunters and soldiers pursue him after his fellow soldiers were massacred during their surrender.
Josey Wales was a complex character, even at his most violent, and showed a person who tried to make it in a world he no longer recognized, led by men he didn't respect. When he states everyone "died a little" in the war, it was a strong condemnation of the entire situation the country found itself in at the time.
Harry Callahan - Dirty Harry Franchise
It seems almost shocking that a man who made his name as a Western antihero would end up with one of his best characters being a police officer. Harry Callahan is the lead character in the Dirty Harry franchise, a homicide inspector who has no problem with shooting the criminals he is pursuing before they can hurt anyone else.
This was the franchise's central theme. His superiors and the city he protected considered him a maverick and a dangerous man, while he felt he was dispensing justice to keep everyone safe. This was a tight line to walk, and Eastwood managed to turn Harry into an antihero who did what he could for his sense of right and wrong.
Dirty Harry has his best performance as the character, although he allowed the character to grow throughout the franchise. Next to his most celebrated Western role, Harry Callahan is what most fans know Clint Eastwood for to this very day.
The Man With No Name - The Dollars Trilogy
The greatest characters Clint Eastwood ever played in his career were three men known by one name: The Man with No Name. These characters appeared in A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), all directed by Sergio Leone.
While the three characters were different, they are all based on the same character type. Eastwood barely speaks, wears a brown hat, and is always deadly with a gun. The characters in the movies have names: Joe, Manco, and Blonde. However, they are all the same character type.
While John Wayne mastered the hero character, even one with flaws, Clint Eastwood created a dark, violent antihero in his movies, and it all started with The Man with No Name.
