Clint Eastwood is an American icon and much of his success is owed to his Dirty Harry franchise–but how do they rank? Looking back on his nearly seven-decade film career, it's incredibly difficult to compare Eastwood's career to any current living actor, director, or filmmaker. In his 90s now, Eastwood has yet to throw in the towel on his filmmaking career and remains one of the biggest stars still churning out movies. Had he retired even three decades ago, he'd still go down as one of the all-time greats.
Starring in several Hollywood spaghetti Westerns directed by Sergio Leone, most notably as The Man With No Name in A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966), Eastwood already earned his namesake by the time he entered the 1970s, which he'd inaugurate with Play Misty for Me and Dirty Harry, both released in '71. With the latter, Eastwood set the standard for the cop-turned-vigilante archetype popular in many subsequent Dirty Harry knockoffs.
The massive success of Dirty Harry generated four sequels throughout the 70s up until the late '80s, each one upping the violence and cool one-liners while increasingly struggling to recapture the magic of the first film. No stranger to controversy, the Dirty Harry franchise undoubtedly has its detractors. But there's no denying the cultural impact and importance of these films. With that in mind, here are all five Dirty Harry films, ranked worst to best:
5. The Dead Pool (1988)
Despite a pretty decent plot involving a horror film director (played by Taken's action star Liam Neeson) who gambles on celebrity deaths in a "dead pool" game, The Dead Pool is easily the black sheep of the franchise. After discovering that a serial killer is manipulating the dead pool by killing celebrities listed in the game, "Dirty" Harry Callahan (Eastwood) investigates the pool to find his name on the list. With a 92-minute runtime, the shortest of the Dirty Harry franchise, The Dead Pool feels more like a mini-movie when compared to its predecessors. Due to the shortness of the script, the story mostly bounces from one action sequence to the next, depicting the still-seething, gun-wielding Harry at perhaps his most tired–even though Eastwood would continue starring in movies for another three decades and counting. On that note, all Dirty Harry movies have at least one famous line. The Dead Pool is no exception, with its oft-cited quote: "Opinions are like a**holes, everybody has one."
4. Sudden Impact (1983)
The fourth and penultimate installment of the franchise, Sudden Impact is the only Dirty Harry film directed by Clint Eastwood himself. A subversive rape-revenge film, Sudden Impact finds Harry in search of a gang rape victim-turned-serial killer (played by Eastwood's then-girlfriend Sondra Locke) when her abusers begin showing up dead. Inadvertently starting a romantic relationship with the killer, Harry becomes entangled in the killer's motives, placing him in a familiar position where his personal ethics conflict with his professional obligations as a law enforcer. Dark in tone and subject matter, what ultimately sets Sudden Impact back is the sequel's lack of a satisfying villain, as well as some noticeable pacing issues. All that aside, the most famous line from Sudden Impact is: "Go ahead, make my day."
3. Magnum Force (1973)
The second movie of the franchise with returning co-writer John Milius (Conan the Barbarian, Red Dawn), Magnum Force serves as a 124-minute foil for Clint Eastwood's Harry, showing that, though Harry may be a bit reckless, there are even worse rogue cops out there. Upon learning of a group of vigilantes who extralegally execute criminals, Harry defies his superior commanding officer to track down who he thinks is the primary killer culprit: another cop. Much of this sequel's plot was responding to the first film's perceived politics in an effort to show that Harry wasn't a completely irresponsible vigilante, that there is a difference between "good" rogue cops and "bad" rogue cops. Despite this attempt at quelling the controversy surrounding the first Dirty Harry, Magnum Force received negative publicity following the disturbing real-life Hi-Fi murders, which were inspired by a murder in the film. Conversely, critical reception to the movie itself was mixed: some critics found the new "Clean Harry" convincing while others did not. On the whole, Magnum Force is today considered one of the better Dirty Harry films. The representative quote from the franchise's first sequel is: "A man's got to know his limitations."
2. The Enforcer (1976)
The third film of the Dirty Harry film series, The Enforcer sees Eastwood's Harry demoted from homicide to personnel as punishment for his use of excessive force. Yet, the timing couldn't be worse for the San Francisco Police Department to effectively decommission Harry, as a rebel terrorist organization called the People's Revolutionary Strike Force (PRSF) initiates a series of crimes throughout San Francisco. After the terrorists kill Callahan's partner, the police department reinstates Harry to the homicide unit, so that he and his new partner, Kate Moore (Tyne Daly), can investigate and take out the heavily armed PRSF. Drawing ire from critics again for its perceived politics, with Clint Eastwood even earning the "Worst Actor of the Year" title from the Harvard Lampoon, The Enforcer is largely considered the best of the Dirty Harry sequels. While Eastwood attracted much of the criticism for his brashly violent masculinity, many of those same critics appreciated Daly's performance as Harry's strong-willed female partner. The best quote from the film: "Here's a seven-point suppository, captain!"
1. Dirty Harry (1971)
The movie that started it all and the best of the franchise, Dirty Harry chronicles Harry's first outing as an irascible investigator for the San Francisco Police Department, with his first major investigation finding Harry on the blood trail of the serial killer Scorpio, a psychopath inspired by the true story of the Zodiac Killer. Frustrated with the police department's bureaucratic decision-making and unwilling to appease the killer's ransom demands, Harry goes rogue to stop Scorpio once and for all. Though certainly the most dated film of the franchise, working on what's clearly the series' smallest budget, Dirty Harry achieves a culture-redefining level of urban cowboy stylishness that set the tone for the popular police film genre. Introducing a highly influential style and aesthetic to American pop culture, Dirty Harry easily earns the top spot of this list, if not simply for having the best quote in the entire franchise: "You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do you, punk?"