Clint Eastwood as The Stranger riding a horse across the American West in High Plains DrifterImage via Universal Pictures
John Wayne fancied himself a custodian of the Western genre, going around wagging his finger at anyone who dared to subvert it. Some would argue that Wayne had earned the honor, given his iconic contributions to the Western genre. However, he was quite rigid in his opinions. He is said to have made Rio Bravo as a response to the classic 1952 film High Noon, which he described in an interview as “the most un-American thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life.” He had a similar reaction to a Western directed by Clint Eastwood following the success of Sergio Leone‘s Dollars Trilogy. The movie in question is streaming on Netflix, but only for a little while longer.
It was released in 1973, becoming the first Western that Eastwood directed and starred in. It was his second directorial effort overall, after 1971’s thriller Play Misty for Me. By then, Eastwood had become an American icon on par with Wayne, thanks to his earlier success. This was a major creative pivot for him, and not everyone was on board with it. While the Western was well-received, Wayne found it too transgressive. In a letter to Eastwood, he wrote, “That isn’t what the West was all about. That isn’t the American people who settled this country.” The movie follows a mysterious stranger who delivers justice in a town with skeletons in its closet.
Collider Exclusive · Taylor Sheridan Universe Quiz Which Taylor Sheridan Show Do You Belong In? Yellowstone · Landman · Tulsa King · Mayor of Kingstown
Four worlds. All of them brutal, complicated, and built on power, loyalty, and the price of survival. Taylor Sheridan doesn’t write heroes — he writes people who do what they have to do and live with the cost. Ten questions will reveal which one of his worlds you were made for.
🤠Yellowstone
🛢️Landman
👑Tulsa King
⚖️Mayor of Kingstown
01
Where does your power come from? In Sheridan’s world, everyone has leverage. The question is what kind.
02
Who do you put first, no matter what? Loyalty in Sheridan’s universe is always absolute — and always costly.
03
Someone crosses a line. How do you respond? Every Sheridan protagonist has a line. What matters is what happens after it’s crossed.
04
Where do you feel most in your element? Sheridan’s worlds are as much about place as they are about people.
05
How do you feel about operating in the grey? Nobody in a Sheridan show has clean hands. The question is how they carry the dirt.
06
What are you actually fighting to hold onto? Every Sheridan character is fighting a war. The real question is what they’re defending.
07
How do you lead? Authority in Sheridan’s world is never given — it’s established, maintained, and constantly tested.
08
Someone new arrives and tries to change how things work. Your reaction? Every Sheridan show has an outsider disrupting an established order. Sometimes that outsider is you.
09
What has your position cost you? Nobody gets to where these characters are without paying for it. The bill is always personal.
10
When it’s over, what do you want people to say? Sheridan’s characters all know the ending is coming. The question is what they leave behind.
Sheridan Has Spoken You Belong In…
The show that claimed the most of your answers is the world you were built for. If two tied, both are shown — you’re complicated enough to straddle two Sheridan universes.
🤠 Yellowstone
🛢️ Landman
👑 Tulsa King
⚖️ Mayor of Kingstown
You are a Dutton — or you might as well be. You understand that some things are worth protecting at any cost, and that the modern world’s indifference to history, to land, to legacy, is not something you’re willing to accept quietly. You lead from the front, you carry your family’s weight without complaint, and when someone threatens what’s yours, you don’t escalate — you finish it. You’re not cruel. But you are absolute. In Yellowstone’s world, that combination of ferocity and loyalty doesn’t make you a villain. It makes you the only thing standing between everything that matters and everyone who wants to take it.
You thrive in the chaos of high-stakes negotiation, where the money is enormous, the margins are thin, and the wrong word in the wrong room can cost everyone everything. You’re a fixer — the person called when a situation is already on fire and needs someone with the nerve to walk into it. West Texas oil country rewards exactly what you are: sharp, adaptable, unsentimental, and absolutely clear-eyed about what people want and what they’ll do to get it. You’re not naive enough to think this world is fair. You’re smart enough to be the one deciding who it’s fair to.
You are a Dwight Manfredi — someone who has served their time, paid their dues, and arrived somewhere unexpected with nothing but their reputation and their wits. You adapt without losing yourself. You build loyalty through respect rather than fear, though you’re not above reminding people that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Tulsa King is for people who are still standing when everyone assumed they’d be finished — who find, in an unfamiliar place, that they’re more capable than the world gave them credit for. You don’t need a throne. You build one, wherever you happen to land.
You carry the weight of a system that is broken by design, and you do it anyway — because someone has to, and because you’re the only one positioned to do it without the whole thing collapsing. Mike McLusky’s world is for people who are comfortable operating where there are no good options, only less catastrophic ones. You speak every language: law enforcement, criminal, political, human. That fluency makes you invaluable and it makes you a target. You’ve made your peace with both. Mayor of Kingstown belongs to people who understand that keeping the peace is not the same as being at peace — and who do the job regardless.
Here’s How Long You Have Left to Watch Clint Eastwood’s Classic on Netflix
We’re talking, of course, about High Plains Drifter, the movie that is popularly recognized as an allegorical ghost story. It now holds a 91% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus reads, “Clint Eastwood’s sophomore outing as director sees him back in the saddle as a mysterious stranger, and the result is one of his most memorable Westerns.” The film was a box-office success, grossing more than $15 million against a reported budget of $5 million. It helped launch one of the most remarkable directorial careers in the history of cinema, a career that lasted nearly six decades and came to an end recently with the courtroom drama Juror #2. You can watch High Plains Drifter on Netflix until October 1, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
