5 Worst Clint Eastwood Western Movies, Ranked

Clint Eastwood's career spans countless Oscar wins, a slew of box office hits, and working with some of the most revered actors of all time. Yet even he would freely admit that he will never shake off the perception of being the face of Western cinema. After all, his breakthrough roles were playing The Man With No Name in '60s Westerns, while subsequent films like "The Outlaw Josey Wales" reaffirmed that this man had a special relationship to the eternally popular genre. A more somber, contemplative take on this domain with 1992's "Unforgiven" only further sealed the deal that Eastwood could not only do any kind of Western but was the genre's non-John Wayne frontman.

That ubiquity, however, doesn't mean that Eastwood's Western cinema track record is devoid of any duds. Given just how many motion pictures he anchored, how could he have avoided some misfires? In contrast to Clint Eastwood's most revered Westerns (which are also some of the genre's most beloved entries), we have the five worst Clint Eastwood Western movies (ranked from "least worst" to worst based average Letterboxd scores). Decades after the debuts of most of these features, it's fascinating to see what audiences think of them and how they function in Eastwood's larger career trajectory.

These five features won't make anyone's list of favorite Westerns anytime soon. However, if nothing else, they reflect the sheer scope of Eastwood's exploits in the genre that's come to define his career.

Ben Platt playing a high school kid in "Dear Evan Hansen." The original "Rent" cast returning for the movie adaptation, even though they'd long aged out of the roles. Whatever James Corden was doing in "Cats." The legacy of movie musicals isn't just the 12 best musical movies ever. It's also littered with bamboozling casting choices that will leave audiences scratching their heads over who thought that was a good idea. Another prime example: Clint Eastwood playing one of the leads in the Western musical "Paint Your Wagon." 

Considering Eastwood had already portrayed The Man With No Name in maximalist spaghetti Westerns like "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" that subverted Hollywood norms, having him suddenly anchor an old-school major studio musical was perplexing. You don't hire the Dead Kennedys to sing "God Bless the U.S.A." Eastwood not exactly being known as a great vocalist didn't help this casting either. This baffling musical concerns the California Gold Rush as well as men competing to buy Elizabeth Woodling (Jean Seberg), a Mormon's wife. This fever dream of a musical movie has a 3.2 average rating on Letterboxd, with some championing the feature's commitment to its insane creative impulses.

Most others, though, didn't find the sight of Lee Marvin and Eastwood crooning in the Old West enough to sustain an excessive 164-minute runtime. At least "Paint Your Wagon" inspired a killer "Simpsons" gag decades after its release.

Joe Kidd (Clint Eastwood), the titular lead of "Joe Kidd," thought his bounty hunting days were over. As so many Western movie protagonists can attest, though, the past is never fully in the rearview mirror. Kidd's forced back into his occupation at the insistence of Frank Harlan (Robert Duvall), who wants Kidd to take down Luis Chama (John Saxon). Thus, Joe is back in the saddle, which offers Eastwood plenty of opportunities to fight baddies against Western backdrops. These proceedings come courtesy of a prestigious creative team, including "Bad Day at Black Rock" and "The Great Escape" director John Sturges behind the camera, Elmore Leonard writing the script, and Lalo Schifrin composing the score. 

Given all the talent assembled, one would hope "Joe Kidd" was a Western for the ages. Instead, it's garnered a muted reputation far removed from the praise surrounding the 10 best Western movies according to Letterboxd users. On that site, "Joe Kidd" had a 3.2 average rating suggesting the project does have its defenders and plenty of people who found it a serviceable watch. Many reviews, though, dubbed "Joe Kidd" middling thanks to problems related to its script lacking any distinctive personality. 

The assembled cast and crew often only reminded certain Letterboxd users of superior features from these artists that they could've been watching instead. Though not torturous to sit through, "Joe Kidd" was a far cry from the standard of the Westerns you need to see before you die.

The 13 best Clint Eastwood movies are far from the only motion pictures that define this man's filmography. His acting career, for instance, dates back to the mid-1950s with titles like the Western comedy "The First Traveling Saleslady." This was a Ginger Rogers star vehicle where she plays Rose Gillray, a corset business owner who decides to revive her trade and settle debts by selling steel wire (a key element of corsets) to Texas cattle ranchers. Along the way, she encounters colorful characters like Lieutenant Jack Rice (Eastwood), while Barry Nelson played Gillray's eventual love interest, Charles Masters.

The concept of Clint Eastwood being a supporting player in a larger ensemble cast, rather than the lead face of a Western, is a strange concept. Ditto the idea of Eastwood, a stern guy known for grim punchlines in his Westerns if he's ever adjacent to comedy, appearing in a wall-to-wall yukfest. While these elements make "The First Traveling Saleslady" a curiosity for Eastwood fans, the 3.0 average rating for this title on Letterboxd suggests that the film itself isn't superb. The inert characters, stomach-churning gender politics, and subpar gags (among other flaws) inform the middling reception "Saleslady" has earned.

The only lively "Saleslady" Letterboxd reviews focus on viewers being shocked to discover that Clint Eastwood was actually in this motion picture. That brief surprise, though, can't sustain an entire feature. "The First Traveling Saleslady" didn't have the goods to register as a compelling movie in its own right.

Clint Eastwood has never made his contempt for the 1958 feature "Ambush at Cimarron Pass" a secret. This Jodie Copelan film was a 73-minute affair starring Scott Brady as Sergeant Matt Blake, who works with cowboys to survive harsh Western territory controlled by Indigenous individuals. Eastwood played Keith Williams while Margia Dean was around as lone prominent lady Teresa Santos. Eastwood was so crushed by how this movie turned out, acknowledging his own bad performance, that he initially believed he'd have to abandon acting entirely. As history has shown, he'd continue down the Western path and find "slightly" more success.

The few who've even seen "Ambush at Cimarron Pass" largely share Eastwood's bleak perception of the feature. The 2.9 average Letterboxd rating for "Ambush" is partially informed by reviews lamenting how the movie's budgetary restrictions are glaringly apparent. Sometimes, threadbare budgets inspire filmmaking creativity. Here, it just ensured "Cimarron Pass" looked dismal and dull. Further complaints centered on the stiff performances and lack of visual pizzaz from Copelan.

The only thing keeping "Ambush at Cimarron Pass" from plummeting to the depths of the five worst Western movies of all time on Letterboxd is the novelty of watching Eastwood navigate the genre so early in his career. As Eastwood himself can attest, though, that's nowhere near enough to make "Ambush at Cimarron Pass" a compelling production.

Clint Eastwood has directed several superb films in his time. Unfortunately, starting in the 2010s, Eastwood's filmmaking grew sluggish. Titles like "Jersey Boys" and "The 15:17 to Paris" were realized with lots of murky grays and few audacious choices to keep people's interest. Even the talents of phenomenal performers like Paul Walter Hauser and Sam Rockwell couldn't liven up something as tedious as 2019's "Richard Jewell," for example. While Eastwood's spaghetti Westerns were full of violent verve, his final directorial efforts were often flatliners.

2021's "Cry Macho," which followed former rodeo star Mike Milo (Eastwood) retrieving a former boss' son from Mexico, was unfortunately criticized for suffering from that tedium. With an average 2.8 rating on Letterboxd, "Cry Macho" was also dismissed for featuring rudimentary visuals and tin-eared dialogue. Even the ending of "Cry Macho" came under scrutiny from several Letterboxd users, who found it manipulative and predictable. Granted, certain Letterboxd patrons also found this title's laidback charms a welcome reprieve from so many overly noisy modern motion pictures.

Generally, though, the Letterboxd reception to "Cry Macho" was a far cry from the kind of universal praise that greeted earlier Eastwood efforts. In hindsight, it's nice that Eastwood's penultimate filmmaking effort brought him back to the Western genre. However, that wasn't enough to generate more favorable Letterboxd notices for the 2021 title.