If you thought that you’d seen Billy Bob Thornton wreaking havoc in Minnesota with a funky hairdo in the first season of Fargo, you’re overlooking his performance in a cult classic movie that’s currently streaming for free. The movie was probably green-lit following the success of the Coen Brothers‘ classic, which received seven Oscar nominations and won two, and grossed $60 million at the worldwide box office. Like the movie Fargo, Thornton’s 1998 cult classic is a darkly comic neo-noir thriller set in Minnesota; it follows three characters who discover a bag full of cash and find themselves turning against each other as they try to keep the discovery a secret.
In addition to Thornton, the movie also features Bill Paxton and Bridget Fonda. It was directed by Sam Raimi, who, by then, had transitioned from his camp horror classic Evil Dead trilogy to studio genre movies. That said, Raimi’s two previous studio efforts had mixed results at the box office. Darkman, the pulp comic book-inspired superhero movie, grossed $48 million worldwide against a reported budget of $14 million. But the more expensive revisionist Western The Quick and the Dead, which cost a reported $35 million to produce, made around $47 million worldwide. Raimi’s next two movies also fell short of the $50 million mark, but things turned around with Spider-Man, which broke numerous records in 2002.
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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
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⚖️Mayor of Kingstown
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01
Where does your power come from? In Sheridan’s world, everyone has leverage. The question is what kind.
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02
Who do you put first, no matter what? Loyalty in Sheridan’s universe is always absolute — and always costly.
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03
Someone crosses a line. How do you respond? Every Sheridan protagonist has a line. What matters is what happens after it’s crossed.
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04
Where do you feel most in your element? Sheridan’s worlds are as much about place as they are about people.
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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.
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06
What are you actually fighting to hold onto? Every Sheridan character is fighting a war. The real question is what they’re defending.
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07
How do you lead? Authority in Sheridan’s world is never given — it’s established, maintained, and constantly tested.
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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.
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09
What has your position cost you? Nobody gets to where these characters are without paying for it. The bill is always personal.
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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.
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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.
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🤠 Yellowstone
🛢️ Landman
👑 Tulsa King
⚖️ Mayor of Kingstown
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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.
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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.
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The Critically Acclaimed ‘Fargo’-Style Thriller Is Streaming for Free
But we’re talking about Raimi’s 1998 movie A Simple Plan. It made around $16 million at the box office, but despite the underperformance, it received mostly positive reviews. It’s now sitting at a “Certified Fresh” 91% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus describes it as “a riveting crime thriller full of emotional tension.” Thornton earned an Oscar nomination, as did screenwriter Scott B. Smith, who adapted his own novel. The late critic Roger Ebert later ranked A Simple Plan as his fourth-favorite movie of 1998, while the critic Matt Zoller Seitz hailed Paxton’s performance as a career highlight. The movie is currently streaming on Pluto TV, along with Raimi’s The Quick and the Dead. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
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