Dirty Harry

Dirty Harry (1971)

  • 95% of critics liked it
    (42 reviews)

  • 86% of users liked it
    (70,494 ratings)

"You've got to ask yourself a question: 'do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?" Dirty Harry provoked a critical uproar in 1971 for its "fascist" message about the power of one, as it also elevated Clint Eastwood to superstar status through his most enduring screen persona. Harry Callahan (Eastwood,… More

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R, 1 hr. 42 min.
Directed By
Don Siegel
Written By
Harry Julian Fink, Rita M. Fink
Genres
Drama, Mystery & Suspense, Classics
In Theaters
Dec 24, 1971 Wide
On DVD
Nov 18, 1997
Warner Home Video

Critic Reviews

  • , Variety

    Clint Eastwood, in the title role, is a superhero whose antics become almost satire. Strip away the philosophical garbage and all that's left is a well-made but shallow running-and-jumping meller.

  • Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

    A crisp, beautifully paced film, full of Siegel's wonderful coups of cutting and framing.

  • J. Hoberman, Village Voice

    No less than Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, it offers a fabulous, multifarious political metaphor. (And, as with Body Snatchers, Siegel's own liberal interpretation was trumped by a more forceful hard-right reading.

  • Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

    If there aren't mentalities like Dirty Harry's at loose in the land, then the movie is irrelevant. If there are, we should not blame the bearer of the bad news.

  • Roger Greenspun, New York Times

    What makes Dirty Harry worth watching no matter how dumb the story, is Siegel's superb sense of the city, not as a place of moods but as a theater for action.

Read all 20 critic reviews

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Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

Featured Audience Ratings

  • Thomas B


    Gritty cop thriller with a great Eastwood performance and some fantastic quotes. Full review later.

  • Brad W


    Dirty Harry is a film by Don Siegel and is quite possible the greatest crime thriller I have ever seen, and I do not say that lightly, I mean I have never seen a film that is so sure in itself that it knows that it is going to be a hit, and from the first moments of the film we know… More

  • Jonathan H


    If you believe in human rights, then Dirty Harry thinks you're a bleeding heart liberal vagina. Don Siegel is a competent director with a pretty good eye, but this film is nothing more than right-wing pornography. No thanks.

  • Alexander D


    DIRTY HARRY is incredibly boring and very hard to sit through. Sure, it has a famous line or two, but the rest is nothing good.

  • Mike S


    Do you feel lucky, punk? A classic film phrase in Hollywood's big quote book, made immortal by a legend of a man, whose star shall burn forever brightly. With a career spanning for as long as 56 years, and still going strong, Clint Eastwood is unquestionably one of the great… More

Read all 20 featured audience ratings

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