The Pacific Northwestern: Pale Rider (35mm)
January 27, 2026
A mysterious preacher defends the hapless prospectors of a mining town against a villainous land tycoon in Eastwood's autumnal vision of the Idaho Sawtooths. Presented on 35mm.
Tickets
Select showtime for pricing and tickets.
Tuesday, January 27, 2026
"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him."—Book of Revelation 6:8
A community of hapless prospectors struggle for survival under the shock and awe terror campaign conducted by property-hungry tycoon Coy LaHood (Richard Dysar). Deliverance comes in the form of a ghostly Preacher (Clint Eastwood), an apparition that arrives seemingly straight out of the craggy rocks of the Idaho Sawtooths, who uses benevolence and hard working ethos in an effort to restore sanctuary to the community. An avenging angel that looks with disdain upon the baron’s hydraulic system lashing away at the mountainside, the Preacher embodies the film's spiritual and ecological concerns as he seeks to offer the denizens a better life. Pale Rider had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in 1985, a time when Eastwood was more widely being recognized as a serious American artist and when westerns were truly out of vogue. Although it maintains the expected workmanlike efficiency and simplicity, there is a mysterious aura permeating Eastwood’s autumnal vision, heightened by the chiaroscuro cinematography of longtime collaborator Bruce Surtees.
“The action genres that Eastwood works in— the Western and the cop movie— depend on the assumption that a man is what he does. But Eastwood’s films destroy that assumption: though we see what he does, the man remains a mystery— withdrawn, unreadable, the workings of his soul a secret.”—Dave Kehr, Variety
- Director: Clint Eastwood
- Principal Cast: Clint Eastwood, Michael Moriarty, Carrie Snodgrass, Chris Penn
- Country: USA
- Year: 1985
- Running Time: 115 min.
- Producer: Clint Eastwood
- Screenplay: Michael Butler, Dennis Shryack
- Cinematographers: Bruce Surtees
- Editors: Joel Cox
- Music: Edward Carfagno
- US Distributor: Warner Brothers