Metascore

Universal acclaim - based on 21 Critics What's this?

User Score

Universal acclaim- based on 72 Ratings

  • Starring: Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman
  • Summary: In this Academy Award winning western, Eastwood and Freeman are down-on-their-luck outlaws who pick up their guns one last time in order to collect a bounty offered by the vengeful prostitutes of remote Big Whiskey, Wyoming.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 17 out of 21
  2. Negative: 1 out of 21
  1. 100
    This dark, melancholic film is a reminder -- never more necessary than now -- of what the American cinema is capable of, in the way of expressing a mature, morally complex and challenging view of the world. [7 Aug 1992]
  2. Reviewed by: Rob Fraser
    80
    It is the last great Western ever made, and it will always remain so.
  3. As a moral reconsideration of the role of violence in previous Eastwood films, this is strong and sure, and characters who play against genre expectations give the film a provocative aftertaste. The only limitation, really, is that the picture hasn't much dramatic urgency apart from its revisionist context.
  4. At the last, we're left with a film that tries to doll up a conventional genre with hints of depth, hoping to disguise the cross-dressing by putting it in the shape of an epic. Murnau, Mizoguchi, Ford, even you authors of the Book of Genesis, rest easy. [12 Oct 1992]

See all 21 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 17 out of 19
  2. Negative: 0 out of 19
  1. 10
    First off, this would be a 9.5 out of 10. Great western film. Acting is good. Morgan is good, and Clint is really good. Score all right. Story is amazing. A great tale of the wild, old west. Action is also well done. Overall, unforgiven is great. It is best picture material, and one of the best westerns. You have to see this movie. Expand
  2. 10
    This is the best western I've seen. Very good history, very good actors and a very good film. One of the best movies I've seen too. And the final confrontation is epic. Expand
  3. Danalek How much does this movie rely on the degree of violence depicted? Remove the violence and what is left? All the conscientious analyses cannot hide the truth: here he is again, director-producer-actor Squint Eastwood shooting his way through another extravaganza of gratuitous killing, and he, as always, decides who will die and who will be spared. Only American audiences accept such slop as a cinematic mastery. Future generations will regard Eastwood as a purveyor of disturbed themes aimed always at box office success. Time he retired... Expand
  4. 4
    I could not see a damn thing and I'm pretty sure people were speaking gibberish for most of the movie. I could not follow the story, but I was able to grasp the ending some how. Ehhh Expand

See all 19 User Reviews

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