Clint Eastwood's Record-Breaking War Movie Leaves Netflix

The legendary Clint Eastwood has called it a day after a landmark career spanning more than seven decades. To put things in context, he made a movie that was broadly viewed as a swan song, and then proceeded to work consistently for another three decades. In fact, he delivered the highest-grossing hit of his filmmaking career in 2014, more than four decades after making his directorial debut with Play Misty for Me. The movie in question marked a return to the war genre for Eastwood, who had directed an ambitious duology — Letters From Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers — only eight years earlier. The 2014 hit is currently streaming on Netflix, but only for a little while longer.

The movie was headlined by Bradley Cooper, who played a real-life soldier credited with one of the highest numbers of confirmed kills in American combat history. The movie remains a towering example of a platform release — a staggered rollout beginning in a few theaters and then expanding nationwide. It grossed around $3.5 million across three weeks in limited release, before expanding nationwide in January and grossing nearly $90 million. It eventually became one of Warner Bros.' top-grossing movies ever, with a total domestic haul of $350 million. Factoring in its overseas haul, the film's global box office total stands at nearly $550 million against a reported budget of $59 million. It eventually overtook Saving Private Ryan to become the highest-grossing war movie in history.