Despite our sense of "the Dirty Harry series," there is only ONE true classic among them:
The original.
I see this happening with two other classics that got sequels:
Psycho (1960)
Jaws (1975.)
The reason: the originals were each made by a master filmmaker: Hitchcock, Spielberg...Don Siegel. (Yes, Clint Eastwood directed one of the Harry sequels, but not when he was at his best, and the other three sequels were done by journeymen.)
A classic movie -- particularly a BLOCKBUSTER classic movie (Dirty Harry, Psycho, and Jaws all were) is a very rare thing for Hollywood to bring forth. Unique. "Once in a lifetime" stories.
Those movies pulled it off -- but the sequels had none of the craft, "respect" or impact of the originals. Spielberg had no control over the Jaws sequels and they infuriated him so much that he "locked up" sequel rights for all of his later films (like Indy Jones and Jurassic Park -- Spielberg directed some of their sequels himself.)
Good sequels are few and far between -- Godfather II, Aliens, what else?
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So my ranking is like this:
1. Dirty Harry (the only Dirty Harry movie that matters -- the only true classic.)
Ranking the sequels among themselves:
1. Magnum Force (A rather unnecessary apology for Harry's supposed fascism)
2 The Enforcer (the female partner makes a difference)
3 Sudden Impact (Go ahead make my day" makes history -- but the movie isn't good)
4. The Dead Pool (wiped out at the box office that summer by the bigger and better Die Hard; Harry is given his walking papers.)
Whaddya know? They got worse in order...
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