One of the good things about streaming becoming so easy and widespread is that there always seems to be some place for any movie to end up. The big streamers can fight over new releases, or just make multi-billion dollar deals to buy the competition, but there’s usually somebody who appreciates the classics. We’re specifically referring to classics like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, which you can watch for free on Tubi.
Italian director Sergio Leone’s 1966 epic is generally considered one of the greatest films of all time, and definitely one of the best Westerns, and perhaps even the singular definitive spaghetti Western. Though it’s skewed because of modern reviews that take its legacy into account, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’s Rotten Tomatoes score sits at 97% for both critics and audiences — meaning it’s a consensus that the movie is straight-up great. How often does that happen?
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What Is ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ About?
Along with Leone’s A Fistful of Dollarsand For a Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is part of the loosely connected “Dollars Trilogy” (also known as the “Man with No Name Trilogy” after star Clint Eastwood’s ostensibly nameless antihero… though he does technically have a name in all three movies). The movies aren’t really related to each other, beyond the fact that Sergio Leone directed them, they’re in the same genre, and Clint Eastwood is in them as a laconic cowboy who wears a cool hat and a sarape. (Unfortunately, Leone didn’t have the foresight to have his cowboy movies tie together for a big Marvel-style payoff.)
In The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Eastwood’s character is a bounty hunter nicknamed Blondie, and though he’s not necessarily a nice guy, he’s the “Good” in the title. He runs a scam with a bandit named Tuco (the “Ugly,” played by Eli Wallach), where he hands him over to the authorities for a bounty and then saves him from being hanged so they can split the money and do the trick again in another town. They cross paths with a mercenary called Angel Eyes (the “Bad,” played by Lee Van Cleef) who is trying to find a stash of stolen Confederate gold.
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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
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🛢️Landman
👑Tulsa King
⚖️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
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👑 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.
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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.
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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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Tuco finds out the cemetery where the gold is buried and Blondie finds out the specific grave it’s hidden in, forcing them all to (kinda) work together in an uneasy alliance. It’s a spoiler to say it all builds to a three-way standoff over who gets the gold, but treating that as a real spoiler does a disservice to Leone’s directing, Ennio Morricone’s iconic score, and Eastwood’s steely-eyed glare. And we’re talking about the definitive spaghetti Western here, so it’s not like there wouldn’t be a standoff at some point. It’s like saying the movie has boots and revolvers in it.
As of January 1, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is streaming for free on Tubi, so there’s really no reason not to set aside three hours or so and revel in the ecstasy of gold (that’s the big song from the soundtrack).
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