65th Academy Awards · 1993
Unforgiven
Directed by Clint Eastwood
“Some legends will never be forgotten. Some wrongs can never be forgiven.”
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The story
William Munny is a retired, once-ruthless killer turned gentle widower and hog farmer. To help support his two motherless children, he accepts one last bounty-hunter mission to find the men who brutalized a prostitute. Joined by his former partner and a cocky greenhorn, he takes on a corrupt sheriff.
What critics & audiences say
Tomatometer96%Fresh#17 of 98 winnersIMDb8.2474K votes#17 of 98 winners
Metacritic85/ 100#48 of 93 winners
TMDB7.9/ 10
Famous lines
Little Bill Daggett: I don't deserve this—to die like this. I was building a house.
Will Munny: Deserve's got nothing to do with it.
It's a hell of a thing, killin' a man. You take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have.
Schofield Kid: Yeah. Well, I guess they had it comin'.
Will Munny: We all have it comin', kid.
Well, he should have armed himself if he's gonna decorate his saloon with my friend.
I've killed women and children. I've killed just about everything that walks or crawled at one time or another, and I'm here to kill you, Little Bill, for what you did to Ned.
Little Bill Daggett: I'll see you in hell, William Munny!
Will Munny: Yeah.
Any man I see out there, I'm gonna kill him. Any son of a bitch that takes a shot at me, I'm not only gonna kill him. I'm gonna kill his wife, all his friends, burn his damn house down!
I was lucky in the order, but I've always been lucky when it comes to killin' folks.
Hell, Will. We ain't bad men no more. Shit, we're farmers.
Hell, I even thought I was dead 'til I found out it was just that I was in Nebraska.
Quotes via Wikiquote
Fun facts
- In 1984, Clint Eastwood's longtime story editor Sonia Chernus sent him a scathing memo calling the script "an insult to this company" and urging him to "get rid of it FAST."Wikipedia · Development
- When Clint Eastwood phoned Richard Harris to offer him English Bob, Harris happened to be watching Eastwood's High Plains Drifter, and thought the call was a prank.Wikipedia · Casting
- David Webb Peoples's script dated back to 1976, when it was developed under the titles The Cut-Whore Killings and The William Munny Killings.Wikipedia · Development
- Francis Ford Coppola originally optioned the script but failed to raise the money to develop it further.Wikipedia · Development
- Gene Hackman was hesitant to play Little Bill Daggett because his daughters were upset he was starring in too many violent films; his agent and Eastwood talked him into it, and the role won him an Oscar.Wikipedia · Casting
- Eastwood got the script in the early 1980s but held off for years, explaining, "I thought I should do some other things first."Wikipedia · Development
- Eastwood dedicated the film to his directing mentors Sergio Leone and Don Siegel, and critic Sven Mikulec called it Eastwood's "eulogy to the Man with No Name character that made him immortal."Wikipedia · Lead
- Its $15 million opening was the best ever for a Clint Eastwood film at the time and the biggest August opening weekend until The Fugitive a year later.Wikipedia · Box office
- The film stayed in theaters for nearly a full year, 343 days, and climbed back into the top 10 in its 35th weekend after its Oscar wins.Wikipedia · Box office
- Clint Eastwood composed the film's main theme, "Claudia's Theme," himself.Wikipedia · Legacy