SUMMARY

 Clint Eastwood’s favorite John Ford movie is How Green Was My Valley, showcasing his appreciation for Ford’s work beyond Westerns.
 How Green Was My Valley‘s influence on Eastwood as an actor can be seen in his ability to make unsentimental characters charismatic and easy to root for.
 Ford’s influence on Eastwood as a director can be seen in the themes and plot choices of his films, such as the exploration of family, community, and masculinity.

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While Clint Eastwood’s most-loved John Ford movie might not be a Western, it is still no surprise that this classic topped the list of the director’s favorites. Ford was a legend in the Western genre, and Eastwood even called the filmmaker one of his favorite directors. Eastwood became a major mainstream star shortly after Ford’s career came to a close, meaning that the pair never got to work together. However, Eastwood did praise Ford as a “pioneer” when he won the inaugural John Ford Award, admitting he grew up on the director’s work (via Irish America).

Since Eastwood and Ford are both seen as two of the greatest Western directors of all time, viewers might assume that Eastwood was referring specifically to Ford’s many great Westerns with these comments. However, that was not quite the case. Although Ford made many classic Westerns, such as The Searchers, Stagecoach, My Darling Clementine, Fort Apache, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, he named a non-Western as his favorite movie from the influential Ford. Even more surprisingly, the movie Eastwood referenced is not often listed as Ford’s best non-Western, like 1940’s adaptation of Grapes of Wrath or The Quiet Man.
Clint Eastwood’s Favorite John Ford Movie Is How Green Was My Valley – Is It Ford’s Best?

Eastwood named How Green Was My Valley as one of his favorite movies in an interview with AFI. This was a striking decision, as the 1941 library adaptation was not considered Ford’s best work, especially compared to the director’s more famous offerings. While Ford’s The Searchers was a massive influence on Eastwood’s revisionist Western Unforgiven, How Green Was My Valley is a very different sort of story for the filmmaker. For one thing, the valley of the title is in Wales. How Green Was My Valley is a rare Ford movie that is set entirely in the United Kingdom, but despite this, the movie won over a young Eastwood.

His love for this lesser-known Ford movie proves that Eastwood’s interests run beyond stories of gun-slinging cowboys and the Wild West.

The story of a working-class mining family in a small Welsh village, How Green Was My Valley is told from the perspective of their youngest child. Based on the novel of the same name by author Richard Llewellyn, How Green Was My Valley is a nostalgic drama that doesn’t sugarcoat the realities of blue-collar life in the Victorian era. Instead, it manages to find both humor and pathos in the difficult circumstances that its heroes face. While Eastwood’s many Western movies made him famous, his love for this lesser-known Ford movie proves that the director’s interests run beyond stories of gun-slinging cowboys and the Wild West.

How Green Was My Valley & John Ford’s Influence On Clint Eastwood’s Career

For Eastwood as an actor, How Green Was My Valley is an obvious influence. Ford’s adaptation makes characters who live in harsh, unsentimental conditions feel charismatic and easy to root for, something that Eastwood has managed countless times throughout his career. In How Green Was My Valley, Ford never frets about making the audience love his characters, and Eastwood’s infamously aloof, taciturn screen persona is borrowed from this successful approach. As a director, How Green Was My Valley’s influence on Eastwood is harder to track. However, some of the filmmaker’s work betrays a fondness for Ford’s movie in terms of plot and themes.
In Gran Turismo, Eastwood follows the story of a family who faced hard times but never lost their spirit. In Eastwood’s latest Western, Cry Macho, the director tackles the story of a flawed father figure trying to teach a kid how to be a man, only to realize he doesn’t know how to do this himself. Both are themes that one can find in How Green Was My Valley, where Ford uses the clan’s hardships and successes to illustrate broader ideas about family, community, masculinity, and what people owe each other. However, Ford’s influence on Eastwood’s career extends past his favorite movie from the director, as evidenced by his output.

Ford’s filmography is echoed throughout the work of Eastwood as both a director and actor. Ford’s tough but sensitive Western heroes provided a blueprint for the many antiheroes that Eastwood played over the decades, while the director’s masterful blending of poignant drama, tension, and comic relief is seen throughout Eastwood’s oeuvre. Meanwhile, although Eastwood’s work is often credited with blurring the lines between good and evil and upsetting the easy morality of earlier Western movies, Ford was instrumental in bringing moral ambiguity to the genre after the child-friendly era of B-westerns. Thus, Ford’s influence on Clint Eastwood extends past his many classic Westerns, as he also made his favorite movie.

With appearances in some of the most memorable movies of the Old West throughout the latter half of the 20th century, Eastwood remains one of American cinema’s brightest and most enduring stars, becoming a genuinely titanic figure in the movie industry.
With efforts in Sergio Leone’s Dollars Trilogy and further appearances in five Dirty Harry movies, Eastwood is a true hero of acting. However, one ought not to forget his wildly significant contributions to cinema as a director, too, with several acclaimed productions coming in the form of Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby and Letters from Iwo Jima, to name but a few.
Still, with all the acclaim that has come his way over the years as both a director and an actor, Eastwood has never stopped short of offering his praise for those who deserve it most. The film icon once spoke of his admiration for the classic Hollywood acting hero Cary Grant, known for his efforts in the comedy movies of the 1930s and 1940s.
“Cary Grant, I was a tremendous fan of, and he was another one of those guys that had a very distinctive personality on the screen,” Eastwood once told AFI of memories of Grant’s performances on screen. “He probably never got as much credit as he deserved, but he was one of the kings of doing that sort of thing, that romantic comedy.”
Eastwood then explained how Grant could go beyond the realms of his expectations, noting, “But he could do serious things, a Mr. Lucky noir-esque kind of thing, but he could also do the romantic comedies because he had such brilliant timing.” It was at that point that Eastwood revealed one of his favourite movies of all time.
The selection is something of a surprising inclusion, especially considering the kind of films that Eastwood himself has become associated with throughout his career, playing tough guys and western heroes. But one of his favourite movies of all time is proof that there lies a soft part of Eastwood underneath his tough exterior.
“His Girl Friday remains one of my all-time absolute favourite films,” Eastwood noted. The movie is Howard Hawks’ 1940 screwball comedy starring Grant as newspaper editor Walter Burns, who is on the verge of losing his best reporter and ex-wife, Hildy Johnson (played by Rosalind Russell), to another man.
There’s truly quick-fire, witty dialogue throughout the film and the chemistry between Russell and Grant is genuinely palpable. Adapted from the play The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, His Girl Friday also serves as a fascinating insight into the fast-paced world of newspaper journalism, with the narrative unfolding over a single day.
In an attempt to keep his wife and ace writer, Walters suggests that both he and Hilda take on one last story and become invested in the case of a local murderer. One might not expect a screwball comedy with Cary Grant to be one of Clint Eastwood’s favourite movies of all time, but the western film icon has proven to surprise once again.

Western’s influence on Hollywood can’t be overstated, a genre that once comprised a quarter of studio output back during its heyday from the ’40s to the mid-60s. While they no longer possess the stranglehold on the medium they once did, Westerns are still alive and kicking, often disguising themselves by mixing with other genres. One of the most prominent additions to this genre in recent years has been Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone, currently one of the biggest shows out there.
Being an avid enjoyer of the genre since his teenage days, which went on to shape his filmography, it’s unsurprising that one of his biggest inspirations involves Clint Eastwood’s acclaimed classic.

Clint Eastwood | Unforgiven
Clint Eastwood’s Most Notable Contribution to Westerns Heavily Influenced Taylor Sheridan
Speaking with Variety, the mastermind behind modern gems such as Sicario and Hell or High Water, opened up about his inspirations behind reinventing the Western on the small screen. While writers like Cormac McCarthy, Larry McMurtry, and Toni Morrison, whose works profusely involved the American Frontier, heavily influenced Costner, it was Unforgiven, which left a huge impact on him. Often considered Hollywood Icon Clint Eastwood‘s most important contribution to the genre, which set a gold standard for revisionist Westerns, it’s no surprise why Sheridan holds Unforgiven so high.
“I was very influenced by writers like Cormac McCarthy, Larry McMurtry, and Toni Morrison, who wrote about the time around the Civil War, which is obviously very similar themes. There’s a lot of Westerns about it. And in terms of the movies that influenced me, it was watching ‘Unforgiven’ when I was in my late teens or very early 20s”
But this isn’t the lone film that influenced the writer greatly, as he named another iconic Western, starring Yellowstone Star Kevin Costner, which too had a big influence on him.
Taylor Sheridan | Creator of Yellowstone
Dances With Wolves Helped Taylor Sheridan to Look at the Genre With a New Lens
While Taylor Sheridan and Kevin Costner are set to part ways as Yellowstone approaches its final stretch next year, Sheridan still holds Costner the actor on a very high pedestal. And per the Sicario writer, it was Costner’s Dances With Wolves that helped him to see Westerns through a new lens, which wasn’t explored before. He said,
“The same with ‘Dances With Wolves,’ where you’re looking at the Western genre through a whole new lens that had never been explored before.”
Kevin Costner | Dances with Wolves
Both Unforgiven and Dances With Wolves‘ contribution to Westerns can’t be overstated, more prominently Unforgiven‘s creator Clint Eastwood, whose works also inspired the great Martin Scorsese.
Unforgiven and Dances With Wolves are available for rent on Apple TV.