The perfect blend of action, drama, historical context and even a hint of romance, Western films are a guaranteed couple of hours of epic battle-filled entertainment. And not many did it better than Clint Eastwood.
From his early days as a rowdy cowboy in Rawhide to his swan song role of a retired gunslinger, Eastwood has been recognised as one of the undisputed greats of the genre, often producing, writing and directing the films he’d star in, and earning countless accolades for it.
Released in 1992, Unforgiven marked a significant turning point in the Western genre as a whole – and in Eastwood’s own career as a filmmaker.
Set in the 1880s, it tells the story of William Munny, a once-notorious outlaw and killer who is now a widowed pig farmer struggling to care for his children.
When offered one last job to track down and kill two cowboys who attacked a prostitute, Munny reluctantly accepts, teaming up with his old partner Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) and a young, inexperienced gunman.
What follows is a cold, morally complex tale that dismantles the romanticised view of the Old West that had dominated the genre for decades.
Unforgiven is often praised for its subversion of genre tropes. It portrays violence not as exciting or heroic, but brutal and irreversible.
Characters are flawed, their motivations are messy, and the consequences of their actions prove to be unavoidable. Hackman’s character, Little Bill Daggett, the town sheriff, is both charismatic and cruel – a far cry from the clear moral binaries of classic Westerns.
Once again directed by Eastwood, who also produced and starred in it, Unforgiven received nine Academy Award nominations and won four: Best Picture, Best Director (Eastwood), Best Supporting Actor (Gene Hackman), and Best Film Editing. It is also frequently cited by specialised media as Eastwood’s greatest Western and one of the most influential films of the 1990s.
The film has been added to the United States National Film Registry and continues to appear on critics’ lists of the greatest films ever made.
An essential for Western film fans and a fresher take on the cliches of the format, Unforgiven (1992) is now available to stream on Amazon’s Prime Video.