Movies - TV
The 15 Best Clint Eastwood-Directed Movies, Ranked
By GINO ORLANDINI
15. Play Misty for Me
"Play Misty for Me'' is Clint Eastwood's 1971 directorial debut, and what's great about his opening gambit behind the camera is that it's nothing like the rest of his western-heavy canon. This is a film-nerd must-see, both as the director's nascent effort and as the one film where the western genre's most unflappable face goes from predator to prey.
14. White Hunter, Black Heart
This 1990 film was adapted from a 1953 "what-if" novel of the same name. Left-leaning Hollywood often thinks of Eastwood as a big conservative, but part of his conservatism involves actually conserving things, and here crafts a compelling psychological case study of found compassion for our animal friends.
13. Sully
Eastwood's simple staging (as opposed to, say, the frantic energy of Paul Greengrass's "United 93") lets this story of professional excellence unfold on the face of Tom Hanks, at his reassuring best, and an air-traffic controller played by Patch Darragh. It's inspired stuff.
12. Richard Jewell
"Richard Jewell" is about the mismatch between one simple-minded man's belief in a fable version of America, and the ruthless but obvious truth that lies beneath. Eastwood's understated biopic portrays Jewell as a tragically naive mama's boy desperate to become the kind of heroic lawman Eastwood often depicted.
11. A Perfect World
This 1993 film has the ethereal free-wheeling fugitive feels of Terrence Malick's early work, like "Badlands." There are some superfluous aspects to this movie, but the tragic father-son bond Kevin Costner's paternalistic but dangerously unhinged fugitive forms with the resilient boy in his charge is worth the price of admission.