Pale Rider

Small-scale gold prospectors in California are under pressure from a big mining operator who wants the whole area. His men raid the camp and wreck it. Right after a young girl prays, a stranger rides in wearing a clerical collar, with no name and no past anyone can place. His staying upsets the balance. Clint Eastwood directed, produced and played the Preacher. The film is openly related to Shane from 1953, effectively a hardened version of it made for adult audiences, and it also talks to Eastwood's own High Plains Drifter from 1973. It was shot in late 1984 in central Idaho, in the Boulder Mountains and the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, just north of Sun Valley. Its place in the industry matters too. It was the first major Hollywood western made after the financial disaster of Heaven's Gate and functioned as a test for the genre. The result was around 41 million dollars and the highest-grossing western of the eighties. Who it is for: viewers who like the classic western shape and the silent hero. Who it is not for: anyone wanting the Preacher explained. The film keeps it deliberately unresolved and leaves a supernatural reading open.