
In 1965, Clint Eastwood and director Sergio Leone collaborated on A Fistful of Dollars, a film heavily inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo. It cleverly connected the themes of Western gunslingers with those of Japanese samurai, portraying the main character as a wandering bounty hunter guided by a strong moral compass. The film’s success launched both Eastwood and Leone into prominent careers that would define much of the late 20th century. While Eastwood explored other genres like crime and comedy, he remained most known for his Westerns. However, during the 1980s, he largely moved away from Westerns, focusing on war and action films, and only made one gunslinger movie during that decade: Pale Rider.