It's the great revisionist Western; a gorgeous, evocative, ultimately elegiac masterpiece; the film Clint Eastwood was born to make, both as a director and an actor, and Unforgiven, the greatest film of the 90s and many more a decade, tops this list as a consequence. Released in 1992, Unforgiven remains the pinnacle of Eastwood's career, easily his finest work behind the camera (it deservedly won him his first Oscar as Best Director), and definitely his best work in front of it, too, which is no mean feat when you consider just how many iconic characters - The Man With No Name; Dirty Harry - he's played. The story of William "Bill" Munny (Eastwood), a retired gunslinger who takes on the proverbial "one last job" with the help of an old friend (Morgan Freeman) and a young upstart (Jaimz Woolvett), Unforgiven transcends its standard synopsis to reach the upper echelons of cinema, a film that fuses the senseless violence of the Old West with something closer to an elegy. This is most obvious in the film's last phase, brilliantly described elsewhere as "Taxi Driver in Stetsons", which touches the great mystical disquiet of even Apocalypse Now's final passage to mark one of cinema's most eerily beautiful stretches of film, capping off a movie as close to perfect as you can get. What's your favourite movie directed by the lead actor? Share your pick down in the comments.
