20 2000s Movies That Could Never Be Made Today

13. Gran Torino (2008)

Gran Torino is one of the best films Clint Eastwood has made, and that’s saying something. Channelling his inner crotchety grouch, Eastwood himself stars as widowed Korean War vet Walt Kowalski, who likes to drink beer on his porch, polish his Ford Torino, and racially abuse his Asian neighbours. But after foiling Thao Vang Lor’s (Bee Vang) attempt to steal his car, he becomes instrumental in breaking the influence of a local gang over the neighbourhood, and comes to realise the interlopers he harbours so much hatred for are really not so foreign after all.

The film is a modern classic, but the currently highly polarised commentariat and Hollywood system means it would be unlikely to make it today. Watching from a contemporary standpoint, there are a variety of tropes we wouldn’t expect to see in a picture of this calibre, including the r**e of a young woman purely as a plot motivation. Then there’s the racism.

The language runs the gamut from perplexing to completely unacceptable, and while this wouldn’t exclude it from production today, the fact that Walt – the openly racist and xenophobic main character – gets a redemption arc would give producers second thoughts about shelling out $30 million for it. Walt never really rolls back his racism, and several of the other characters are merely instrumental in providing the path for what is, underneath it all, a white saviour narrative.