Bill McKinney

As The Outlaw Josey Wales, Clint Eastwood is ideal as a wary, fast-drawing loner, akin to the Man With No Name from his European Westerns. But unlike that other mythic outlaw, Josey Wales has a name - and a heart. That heart opens up as the action unfolds. After avenging his family's brutal murder, Wales is pursued by a pack of killers. He prefers to travel alone, but ragtag outcasts (including Sondra Locke and Chief Dan George) are drawn to him - and Wales can't bring himself to leave them unprotected. Time called it one of 1976's best movies.

It's easy to forget that this Spartan, violent film, which begat the Rambo series, was such a big hit in 1982 because it was a good movie. Green Beret vet John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) wanders into the wrong small town to find a fellow 'Nam buddy and gets the living heck kicked out of him by the local law enforcement (led by Brian Dennehy). The vet strikes back the only way he knows how, leading to a visceral, if unrealistic, flight and fight through the local mountains.