5 - The Outlaw Josey Wales

4 - Million Dollar Baby

3 - The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

2 - Dirty Harry

1 - The Unforgiven

                                Classic Clint

I haven't done exhaustive research on this, but I'm willing to bet that there has never been an actor with 50 years of screen credits who, half a century into it, also won another Best Director Oscar. Clint Eastwood is an absolute rarity. For the first 20 years of his career, he was defined by his squint and his gunplay. For the next 15 years, by his squint, gunplay, and bad, silly action movies. Then came Unforgiven, and it was like Eastwood was reborn.

Though he's made a few forgettable movies since 1992, there's no denying that the artist Eastwood is in his late 70s is better on every level than any of his previous incarnations. He's a better actor, a better storyteller, a better director, and what the hell, a better composer. And what he has done in the past five years is truly, truly astounding. Perhaps only Kurosawa was still making great films so late in life. But it's the kinds of stories Eastwood is telling now that are the most interesting thing about his renaissance: He hasn't made a western in nearly 20 years.

As an actor, interestingly enough, most of Eastwood's best performances have come after the age of 60, and only one of those (In the Line of Fire) is in a film by another director. And you can't mock his style anymore, not after Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby, which is the best performance in his long career.

So narrowing this down to five capstone movies is tough. We have the new crop and a smattering of his pre-Unforgiven films to choose from. Fortunately, as we pare down the list - which is also open to his acting performances - there aren't many before 1992 that really qualify, so that saves us some time.

And what does it mean, The Top Five Clint Eastwood Movies? For our purposes, it's those movies that we'll forever identify with him, no matter what role he played in the production.

Though he had directed a couple of times before, it was The Outlaw Josey Wales that really removed all doubt that Eastwood knew exactly what he was doing. Recently ranked the #18 western of all time by the Western Writers of America, I think a lot of fans of the genre would have Eastwood's savage tale of revenge rated a bit higher. If there's one movie in Eastwood's catalog that pointed to the kind of director he would be two and three decades later, this is it.

I remember watching Million Dollar Baby on one of those awards screeners without knowing a great deal about it. At the time, I think everyone had The Aviator winning Martin Scorsese the Best Director Academy Award. I still think he deserved it, but Eastwood's movie is so far removed from anything he'd attempted to do thematically and, to a degree, morally. He showed that he could direct quiet moments and quiet characters and that he could become one of those characters himself, offering the most nuanced portrayal he's ever given.

What to do with the Leone films? They're all great; I flirted with combining all three of them into one entry, because it's not really fair to take these three great classics and knock out the majority of the list. Besides, this is the Top Five Eastwood Movies, the movies we'd watch if we were in the mood for some Clint. And I don't know too many of us that would choose A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly over any combination of the rest of the five. That being said, the trilogy does need to be represented and this is the best of the bunch.

Dirty Harry makes our list at number two for a couple of reasons: 1) It's actually a good film, and it's aged about as well as any other cop drama from the early 70s (trust me, that chase in The French Connection isn't nearly as good now as it was then), and 2) Harry Callahan is Eastwood's signature role. The catchphrases, that bazooka attached to his wrist. It would make the Top Five anyway, but if we're saying "These are the quintessential Clint Eastwood movies," then this can't be lower than second place.

But Dirty Harry can't be higher than second place, either, because in 1992, when nobody was paying attention, Clint fooled around and made a definitive last statement in an era of western film. You'll notice that there weren't many good westerns made after Unforgiven for quite some time, and none that were anything other than a traditional story without a lot of layers and in-depth exploration of the characters. Tombstone, released the following year, is great fun, don't get me wrong, but it's not really trying to say anything. And Unforgiven does say it, emphatically. And it proved that Clint Eastwood was more than an action star who directed his own movies. He was now capable of real art, in a genre that a lot of moviegoers simply never took too seriously, which is really their own fault.

It's also the best film he's directed, and he gives one of his better performances, too. Hard to imagine the history of the western film without Unforgiven. And it's hard to imagine the history of film in general without Clint Eastwood.

For next week, our Top Five contest is open to everyone, wherever you may be. We want The Top Five Must-Watch Halloween Movies. There are plenty of scary movies to choose from, but which ones would make the best all-night Halloween film fest? Your answers could score you the two-disc collector's edition of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas on DVD. Our friend Christian Carvajal reviewed the new DVD for us a while back, and he gave it a glowing review.

For your chance to win, shoot us an e-mail with your votes for the Top Five Must-Watch Halloween Movies, and please include your mailing address, and you'll have until Thursday night October 30th at 10pm Pacific to get us your lists.