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Unforgiven
Warner Bros.


9.5

based on 21 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 10 votes
Read user comments
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FILM:

Internet Movie Database

MPAA RATING: R

Starring Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris, Jaimz Woolvett, Saul Rubinek, Frances Fisher, and Anna Levine

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.

GENRE(S):	Western
WRITTEN BY:	David Webb Peoples
DIRECTED BY:	Clint Eastwood
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: August 22, 1997 Video: March 13, 2001 Theatrical: August 7, 1992
RUNNING TIME:	131 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Simultaneously heroic and nihilistic, reeking of myth but modern as they come, it is a Western for those who know and chrish the form, a film that resonates with the spirit of films past while staking out a territory quite its own. [7 Aug 1992]

100

Variety Todd McCarthy

Clint Eastwood has crafted a tense, hard-edged, superbly dramatic yarn that is also an exceedingly intelligent meditation on the West, its myths and its heroes.

100

Chicago Tribune Dave Kehr

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]

100

Time Richard Corliss

Unforgiven questions the rules of a macho genre, summing up and maybe atoning for the flinty violence that made Eastwood famous. [10 Aug 1992]

100

Austin Chronicle Louis Black

But in the genre, as both a movie and a conscious addition to the ongoing celluloid Western mythology, the film is a masterpiece, a stunning and awe-inspiring statement.

100

The New Yorker Michael Sragow

Under its leathery hide is a genuine compulsion to de-romanticize Western gunfighting. Every bullet in this movie matters, and by the end Munny's alcohol-fuelled, satanic purposefulness is shocking: in the climax, even his choice of victims has a crazy excess. [10 Aug 1992, p.70]

100

Wall Street Journal Julie Salamon

It's powerful entertainment. [22 Sept 1992, p.A16(E)]

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Unforgiven is the most provocative western of Eastwood's career, and with Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman and Richard Harris along for the ride, it's also the most potently acted.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Exults in the hard-riding romanticism of classic Westerns, but it takes revisionist stock too. It dismounts at places usually left in the dust -- the oppressed lot of women, the loneliness of untended children, adult illiteracy and the horrible last moments of the dying.

TV Guide Staff (Not Credited)

The cast is universally strong. Hackman, Freeman and Harris don't do anything they haven't done before, but the roles suit their personae to a degree where they approach archetypal status.

USA Today Mike Clark

It's the actor/director's best movie - and the best Western by anybody in over 20 years. [7 Aug 1992]

Film.com John Hartl

If Unforgiven occasionally overstates its case, this is the best work Eastwood has done as a director since The Outlaw Josey Wales 16 years ago.

The New York Times Vincent Canby

Unforgiven... never quite fulfills the expectations it so carefully sets up. It doesn't exactly deny them, but the bloody confrontations that end the film appear to be purposely muted, more effective theoretically than dramatically.

Empire Rob Fraser

It is the last great Western ever made, and it will always remain so.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jay Scott

Each character in David Webb Peoples' dense, unexpectedly stately, non- violent script (the inevitable gore is employed sparingly) is treated with that same, somewhat distanced clarity.

Entertainment Weekly Staff (Not Credited)

As enjoyable as most of Unforgiven is, Eastwood's shades-of-gray moralism feels like a whitewash.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Plays out its drama with enough old-fashioned sobriety to lend the proceedings a classical air, offering the comfort of familiarity rather than the thrill of discovery. [13 Aug 1992]

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

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.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Though the movie is riddled with memorable scenes of violence, its pace is slow -- too slow. It has an epic sprawl, but it's not an epic. It's more like a bloated fairy tale. [7 Aug 1992]

Washington Post Hal Hinson

If Eastwood had any emotional depth as an actor, the character's anguish might come through.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

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]

The average user rating for this movie is 9.5 (out of 10) based on 10 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Bit B gave it a10:
Beautifully crafted, supremely acted, a modern western like no other! One of Eastwood's best; right up there along The Good, The Bad & The Ugly even though so different.

Mike S. gave it a10:
This is one of my favorite movies of all time. It is certainly a great western with many philosophical layers. It is a thinking-man's movie.

Luis L. gave it a10:
in my opinion unforgiven is the best film of all times.

Pat C. gave it a 10:
Uses the flexible morality of the wild west for a character study of a serial killer. The prostitutes, hired hands, outsiders - all are cliche characters, but where the elements that ring true are emphasized. Eastwood not only atones for all the conscienceless gunslingers he played, but issues a mandate to take him seriously. The result is soaring allegory, presented in the familiar natural setting that is Hollywood's longstanding version of frontier life. An essential classic of the western genre, and a milepost of where it ultimately took us.

Yoon C. gave it a 5:
"Do you use your hand?" asks Freeman of Eastwood. Imagine how the Duke would have responded to someone asking about what he does with his pud. But, then it's a REVISIONIST western(and it finally explains why Eastwood's been squinting so much thru all his movies). Ah, one of those things, that purports to demythify the West and tell us something about the true nature of violence. So, we get people getting shot followed by long sermons. The movie works on two levels. On the basic level it's Clint Eastwood killing Gene Hackman as Pat Buchanan and hogging all the oscars from Hollywood community. On the other hand, it's a movie that suggests moral outrage is often just an excuse, a specious rationalization for the outlet of our naturally aggressive and murderous behavior. So, all those who rooted for Eastwood's avenging of Freeman has fallen into the trap of justifying violence thru moral outrage. But, the film lacks the conviction of either intention and is about as fun as chewing on stale tobacco. Eastwood, a workman like director, a decent craftsman, has been way overpraised by the French and the likes of Dave Kehr as a major auteur. Granted, his kind of classic filmmaking is a lost art but was it ever much to begin with?

Weepstah gave it a 10:
A wonderfully complex take on western mythos. There are really only a few "innocents" in the picture, and they get handled quite roughly. Black/White labels don't stick very well here and the idea that the showdown between Munney and Dagget is your classic good guy/bad guy item is totally ludicrous. A great screenplay, and Clint made sure to bring it to fruition with the cast, cinematography and music. The greatest western I've ever seen, it deserved every award it got.

Unforgiven Warner Bros.

Unforgiven
Warner Bros.