Subtitles: English SDH, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish
Release Date: 29.4.2025
The Film
Pale Rider isn't a classic like The Outlaw Joey Wales or Unforgiven, but it's a smartly directed, well-acted, and often thrilling revenge story that works because Eastwood knows the genre better than anyone.
The setup is straightforward, almost simplistic. An independent mining town is held under the boot heel of an unscrupulous robber baron. His men torment the citizens daily, looting and killing at will. The people pray for salvation, which arrives in biblical form as a man riding a pale horse. He doesn't have a name except for the moniker of The Preacher, and calling him monosyllabic would be generous.
Nevertheless, The Preacher won't stand idly by as people are harassed, and he gets to work on ridding the town of those who would menace the innocent. That's it.
For the next two hours, we enjoy Eastwood kicking the snot out of bad guys while looking both bored and a little irritated that he's the one doing it once again.
Pale Rider came out at a time when Western's had fallen out of style entirely, and it was still almost a decade before Unforgiven would give both the genre and Eastwood a revival of sorts. Here, Eastwood doesn't even attempt to change the cultural expectations, and instead settles for just making a quality picture that's entertaining from beginning to end.
It won't win any awards, nor surprise anyone with eloquent writing or acting. But it is a solid, well-made effort that any Western fan should see.
Video
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
As with Dirty Harry and The Outlaw Josey Wales, Pale Rider looks absolutely stunning and is a marked improvement over the Blu-Ray release from 2011.
No longer soft and out of focus, the image retains the beautiful film grain from how it was originally shot, with the glorious HDR really bringing depth to shadows and highlights at every turn. This is often a drab and grey film to emphasize the mood, but check out the sequence where The Preacher rides into town for the first time and see just how gorgeously the scenery pops even in the far distance.
Close-ups and skin tones are, likewise, beautiful and accurate. There's a stunning shot of Eastwood in a dimly lit tavern that really showcases what a great transfer like this is capable of. The shadows never crush detail and you can make out even the softest glimmer in Eastwood's eyes. It's really stunning work, especially for a film nearing its 50th anniversary.
All in all, this is a pristine transfer and easily among the best 4K releases of the year.
Audio
As with Dirty Harry and Josey Wales, Pale Rider gallops onto 4K with a fantastic mix of new and old. The Dolby Atmos mix adds new sound effects and a fresh remaster that is admittedly very impressive and all around immersive. But for those of us who crave for preservation, Pale Rider delivers the original mono track split into two channels.
Joonatan Itkonen
Happily, this too is cleaned up and restored exceptionally well, with every element sounding better than ever. Whichever selection you choose, you're bound to be happy with this presentation that, like its two other recent releases, sets the gold standard for how older films should be presented on 4K UHD.
Extras
As with the other recent Eastwood releases, Pale Rider is packed with extras, some of which are new to this release.
Out of the three featurettes, two are brand new, and sadly they're also the shortest of the bunch. The Diary of Sydney Penny lasts only 7 minutes, even though it's so fascinating it could easily be three times the length. It's a conversation with actor Sydney Penny, who plays Megan, and her recollections of making Pale Rider as her feature debut. 50 years later, it's a wonderful look at the ground level workings of an Eastwood production, and a delight to hear how a young actor navigates a production where everyone else is a veteran of half a decade or more at that point.
The second featurette, Painting the Preacher, is all about the cinematography, and it's mostly a retrospective from everyone else except the cinematographer, Bruce Surtees, who sadly passed away in 2012. As a tribute, it's still lovely, and it goes into the production issues that Pale Rider faced, and how Surtees still managed to create evocative, iconic imagery out of nearly nothing.
The third featurette is the same as on The Outlaw Josey Wales, which implies Warner Bros. probably didn't expect fans to buy both, and also a reissue from the 2021 documentary A Cinematic Legacy, charting Eastwood's career. At 20 minutes, it's kind of a love-fest, with Eastwood's friends and fans coming together to admire his work and stature as a cinematic legend. Well-deserved, no doubt, but it's not particularly revealing or interesting past the first 10 minutes.
The two other documentaries are from the Eastwood 20 collection, which saw a limited release in the Nordics and therefore went unnoticed by most. These are genuinely fantastic additions, and I'm thrilled Warner Bros. didn't cut them out like other distributors would have.
Eastwood Directs is just over an hour in length, and goes into detail about Eastwood's directorial style. What first appears lackadaisical soon reveals itself as a man who knows exactly what he wants and has the expertise to pull it off without making a scene of it. For anyone who wants to direct films, this is essential viewing to see how simple and direct great filmmaking can be.
The final documentary, The Eastwood Factor, actually was released as an independent DVD release in the Nordics, and it's not hard to see why. At 90 minutes, it's a feature-length piece on Eastwood and his relationship with Warner Bros. as a home for his features. Led by historian Richard Schickel, the doc interviews collaborators, friends, and other film historians about Eastwood's then 35 year career with the legendary studio.
It's almost 20 years old by now, so Eastwood has made a bunch of films after it came out. Just as long as you're fine with some older information, this is a genuinely compelling look at the kind of relationship most filmmakers never get, but one that is clearly beneficial to everyone involved.
Overall
Pale Rider might not be a classic Eastwood film, but it's solid enough that fans of the genre and star should enjoy it even on repeat viewings. The 4K disc, however, is one for the ages, and features the same high quality of restoration work we've come to expect from Warner Bros.
It's packed with extras, it looks and sounds amazing, and the film is good, too. This is an essential purchase and one of the best discs of 2025.
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