Clint Eastwood may have appeared in fourteen films since “Unforgiven,” but his Oscar-winning directorial effort truly feels like a loving farewell to the genre that defined his career in front of the camera. For many, his role as Will Munny, a spent gunman who makes one last stand, is one of his best and he could have hung up his acting hat there and then for good in one of the best Western films of all time. For his co-star, Morgan Freeman, however, there’s an earlier role, rooted in Eastwood’s time in the Old West, that surpasses even that.

Speaking to Rotten Tomatoes in 2023, the five-time Oscar nominee (one of which he won for his performance in Eastwood’s “Million Dollar Baby”) was asked about his favorite films. Of his five truly fascinating choices, one was Eastwood’s own cold-blooded cowboy film from 1976, “The Outlaw Josey Wales.” In the film, Easwood played the titular character,…