The Beguiled

The Beguiled (1971) is Don Siegel's dark Civil War drama, and you can watch online on iFILM. Clint Eastwood steps far outside his usual tough-guy mold to play a wounded Union soldier caught in a web of misplaced tenderness.

Bleeding and helpless, Corporal John McBurney is taken in by a young student at an isolated girls' boarding school in the South. The women nurse the Yankee back to health, and the cloistered house slowly thickens with jealousy. Realizing how lucky his refuge is, John plays on the feelings of several residents at once, from the stern headmistress (Geraldine Page) to the younger pupils. When his scheming finally comes to light, the women he deceived turn on him in ways that make leaving the house a terrifying prospect.

Siegel and Eastwood, both rooted in westerns and action pictures, delivered an unexpectedly claustrophobic psychological thriller about power, desire, and revenge. It is a gothic, unsettling piece that Sofia Coppola later reimagined, though this original cuts colder and meaner. Stream The Beguiled (1971) online on iFILM.