Eastwood revisited the western genre in "Unforgiven" (1992), a film which he directed and starred in as an aging ex-gunfighter long past his prime. Scripts existed for the film as early as 1976 under titles such as "The Cut-Whore Killings" and "The William Munny Killings", but Eastwood delayed the project because he wanted to wait until he was old enough to play his character and to savor it as the last of his western films. "Unforgiven" was a major commercial and critical success; Jack Methews of the "Los Angeles Times" described it as "the finest classical western to come along since perhaps John Ford's 1956 "The Searchers". The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards, (including Best Actor for Eastwood and Best Original Screenplay for David Webb Peoples) and won four, including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood. In June 2008 "Unforgiven" was ranked as the fourth-best American western, behind "Shane", "High Noon", and "The Searchers" in the American Film Institute's "AFI's 10 Top 10" list.