Dirty Harry (1971)

All Critics (43) | Top Critics (6) | Fresh (46) | Rotten (2) | DVD (34)

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.

March 1, 2007 Full Review | Comments (13)

Variety

Top Critic

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

March 1, 2007 Full Review

Dave Kehr

Chicago Reader

Top Critic

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.

April 4, 2006 Full Review

J. Hoberman

Village Voice

Top Critic

Seminal law-and-order cinema.

January 26, 2006 Full Review

Time Out

Top Critic

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.

October 23, 2004 Full Review | Comments (2)

Roger Ebert

Chicago Sun-Times

Top Critic

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.

May 21, 2003 Full Review

Roger Greenspun

New York Times

Top Critic

A significant film ideologically, this right-wing revenge crimer catapulted Clint Eastwood to major stardom and launched a whole cycle of films about taking the law into your hands.

April 16, 2011 Full Review | Comment (1)

Emanuel Levy

EmanuelLevy.Com

"Dirty Harry" is still one of the most enjoyable films you could hope to sit down with for a couple of hours.

October 3, 2010 Full Review

Cole Smithey

ColeSmithey.com

'70s rebel-cop classic is way too edgy for kids.

September 14, 2010 Full Review | Comment (1)

Charles Cassady

Common Sense Media

Don Siegel's action thriller hasn't aged a single day since its release...

July 6, 2010 Full Review

Felix Vasquez Jr.

Cinema Crazed

An iconic performance by Clint Eastwood creates a cinematic immortal.

June 20, 2010 Full Review

Scott Nash

Three Movie Buffs

Siegel makes excellent use of San Francisco locations, even if Harry makes a few implausible leaps across town from time to time. The Kezar Stadium showdown in particular is a keeper.

July 3, 2009 Full Review

Jeffrey M. Anderson

Combustible Celluloid

The straw-man arguments made here skew towards caveman us-versus-them idiocy.

June 19, 2009 Full Review | Comments (5)

Rob Humanick

Projection Booth

Don Siegel's Dirty Harry is an apt example of a film with a vision that few people perceive beyond its violent, flamboyant surfaces. If director Siegel might be a bit uncomfortable with a close reading of his movie, he also might be pleased that the...

March 1, 2009 Full Review

Tony Macklin

tonymacklin.net

... as Inspector Harry Callahan, known to the squad as Dirty Harry, Eastwood turned his frontier persona into an urban cowboy on the mean streets of our urban world.

October 26, 2008 Full Review

Sean Axmaker

Seanax.com

If you don't buy this sociological stuff and consider Dirty Harry to be little more than an above average B-picture, it's impossible to deny it is a superb action movie.

August 24, 2008 Full Review

Film4

[Don] Siegel is lean, terse director who is happy leave "Dirty" Harry the vivid kind of moral conundrum that makes movies interesting...

June 16, 2008 Full Review

Sean Axmaker

Seanax.com

...not only the first movie in the series, it's still the best. (Blue-ray Edition)

June 2, 2008 Full Review

John J. Puccio

Movie Metropolis

...a taut, well-paced cop thriller with two solid adversaries in conflict.

May 29, 2008 Full Review

John J. Puccio

Movie Metropolis

A fascist film, or a film about a fascist cop? Either way, this is suspenseful, energetic stuff.

March 1, 2007 Full Review

TV Guide's Movie Guide

The Eastwood-Siegel combo packs more of a punch every year.

December 28, 2006

Carol Cling

Las Vegas Review-Journal

• 1. Harry Callahan: You've got to ask yourself a question: 'do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?
  – Submitted by Husam A (6 months ago)
• 1. Harry Callahan: Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?
  – Submitted by Alex K (7 months ago)
• 1. Harry Callahan: I know what you're thinking. 'Did he fire six shots or only five'? Well to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, i kind of lost track myself. But being that this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well do ya, punk?
  – Submitted by Rachel A (10 months ago)
• 1. Harry Callahan: I know what you're thinking. 'Did he fire six shots or only five'? Well to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, i kind of lost track myself. But being that this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well do ya, punk?
  – Submitted by bob j (13 months ago)
• 1. Harry Callahan: You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?
  – Submitted by Tyler C (2 years ago)

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