Gran Torino
2008 American film directed by Clint Eastwood
Gran Torino is a 2008 drama film produced and directed by Clint Eastwood, who also stars in the lead role. The film features a significant Hmong American cast, a first for mainstream American films. Kyle Eastwood and Michael Stevens composed the score, while Jamie Cullum and Clint Eastwood provided the lead track.
Set in Highland Park, Michigan, the story follows Walt Kowalski (Eastwood), a recently widowed Korean War veteran alienated from his family. When Kowalski's neighbor Thao Vang Lor is pressured by his cousin into stealing Walt's prized Ford Torino as initiation into a gang, Walt thwarts the theft and develops a relationship with the boy and his family.
Gran Torino opened with a limited theatrical release in the United States on December 12, 2008, before expanding wide on January 9, 2009. It grossed $270 million worldwide, making it Eastwood's second highest-grossing film to date. The film received generally positive reviews from critics who noted Eastwood's direction and performance, while it received some criticism for its inaccurate depiction of the Hmong community.
Plot
Recently widowed Walt Kowalski is an ill-tempered and racially prejudiced Korean War veteran and retired Ford factory worker. His Rust Belt neighborhood in Metro Detroit has become ridden with gang violence among poor Hmong immigrants, including Walt's next-door neighbors, the Vang Lor family.
“Gran Torino” enters the record as 2008 American film directed by Clint Eastwood. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Gran, Torino and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Gran Torino” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Gran, Torino and American provides the most credible route into that argument.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q126699. VIAF identifies the subject as 309914831. The Library of Congress control number is no2016120398. 4 of 8 selected statements include explicit references; 4 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2008 and 2009.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gran Torino” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.