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Russell Crowe’s Star Studded Western Officially Hits a Bullseye on Free Streaming

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The Western genre was running on fumes by the 1990s, following a heyday that lasted several decades. That said, the ’90s produced a handful of classics that are remembered to this day. Some of them, like Kevin Costner‘s Dances with Wolves and Clint Eastwood‘s Unforgiven, were both critically and commercially successful. Others, like the troubled Tombstone, did solid business at the box office and developed a cult following in the subsequent years. Even the costly misfire Wyatt Earp, which Costner developed as a rival project to Tombstone, has found an audience at home. One movie, however, remains the undisputed Western cult classic of the 1990s, and now it’s streaming for free in the United States.

The film featured a stacked cast that included Gene Hackman, Sharon Stone, Russell Crowe, and a young, pre-Titanic Leonardo DiCaprio. It was directed by the up-and-coming Sam Raimi as his second major studio project following the success of his Evil Dead trilogy and the less successful Darkman. The Western received mixed reviews and fell short of box-office expectations, grossing $47 million worldwide against a reported budget of $35 million. But it eventually found an audience on VHS, DVD, and other home-video platforms.













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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
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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

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01

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Where does your power come from?
In Sheridan’s world, everyone has leverage. The question is what kind.




02

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Who do you put first, no matter what?
Loyalty in Sheridan’s universe is always absolute — and always costly.




03

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Someone crosses a line. How do you respond?
Every Sheridan protagonist has a line. What matters is what happens after it’s crossed.




04

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Where do you feel most in your element?
Sheridan’s worlds are as much about place as they are about people.




05

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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

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What are you actually fighting to hold onto?
Every Sheridan character is fighting a war. The real question is what they’re defending.




07

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How do you lead?
Authority in Sheridan’s world is never given — it’s established, maintained, and constantly tested.




08

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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

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What has your position cost you?
Nobody gets to where these characters are without paying for it. The bill is always personal.




10

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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…
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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

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🛢️
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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Here’s Where You Can Watch the Quirky Western for Free

We’re talking, of course, about The Quick and the Dead. The movie follows a female gunslinger who rides into an Old West town where she participates in a contest that attracts a variety of colorful characters. The movie now holds a 62% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus reads, “The Quick and the Dead isn’t quite the draw that its intriguing premise and pedigree suggest, but fans of nontraditional Westerns should have some rootin’ tootin’ fun.” The movie was designed as a revisionist ode to Sergio Leone‘s Dollars Trilogy, and with Stone occupying the number-one spot on the call sheet, she had final say on Raimi being hired to direct. She was also instrumental in the casting of Crowe and DiCaprio. Three decades after its release, the movie has been embraced as an underrated gem by a contemporary audience, and is now streaming for free on Pluto TV. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.


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Release Date
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February 9, 1995

Runtime

107 Minutes

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Writers

Simon Moore

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