Before he did stand up routines at political conventions, Clint Eastwood’s career blossomed as a strong, silent badass who didn’t take shit from anyone in the Wild West. Years later, he would return to the Western for the final time as the protagonist and director of this brooding and decidedly unromantic vision of American life where outlaws and lawmen commit heinous acts for their own ends. Following the disfigurement of a local prostitute, a bounty is put out on the cowboys who partook in the act, drawing men from all around seeking money for assassination. One of them being William Munny (Eastwood), an aging widower with two children and near derelict farmland. Initially refusing to take the bounty because of personal demons from his violent past, Munny relents and recruits Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman), another former outlaw with his own troubled history, to seek out the culprits. But, they’ll have to get past the local sheriff (Gene Hackman) to collect their reward, a man who doesn’t allow lawlessness… at any cost. Widely considered one of the great Westerns, containing unstylish yet griping gunfights and a murky, morally complex plot, watch Clint give one hell of a swan song to a genre that made him famous in 35mm.

730pm // Somerville Theatre // $10