The 85-Minute Western Classic That Rewrote the Genre Forever Is Streaming for Free

4 days ago 9

Published Feb 7, 2026, 9:00 AM EST

Rahul Malhotra is a Weekend News Writer for Collider. From Francois Ozon to David Fincher, he'll watch anything once.

He has been writing for Collider for over two years, and has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal to introduce audiences to a whole new world of cinema.

Swing and a miss > measured victory. Also, #JusticeForHan. (He/Him).

Several classics deserve to be revisited amid this ongoing new wave of interest in the Western genre. Audiences who've become obsessed with Taylor Sheridan's work on Paramount+, particularly his expanding Yellowstone universe, would be curious about the many movies he's drawing from. Westerns haven't been this popular in many decades, and for the longest time, audiences would only pay attention to the genre if the Coen Brothers or Quentin Tarantino were involved. Streaming services aren't making the discovery of older movies any easier, with their aversion to platforming anything that was made before the 1980s. But Westerns enjoyed a heyday in the 1950s, with movies such as Spencer Tracy's Bad Day at Black Rock, Gregory Peck's The Gunfighter, and John Wayne's The Searchers representing all the ways in which the genre could be molded. However, one of the best Westerns of the era is a movie that's now streaming for free in the United States.

Director Fred Zinnemann's High Noon, starring Gary Cooper as a marshal who finds himself in a tight spot, was released in 1952. It featured Grace Kelly, Lon Chaney Jr., and Lloyd Bridges in supporting roles, and immediately stood out for its radical rewriting of Western tropes. Unlike the genre's most popular movies, which presented a rather black-and-white morality and old-fashioned view of masculinity, High Noon revolved around a character torn between personal and professional obligations. Nor was the film's protagonist portrayed as a heroic savior; his attempts to secure assistance raised questions about complicity in the face of crime. High Noon unfolded in real time, and received divisive reactions upon release. It garnered several Oscar nominations, and Cooper won for his leading performance, but it annoyed John Wayne immensely.

Here's Where You Can Watch 'High Noon'

The Duke, as he was popularly known, said that he made Rio Bravo as a response to High Noon, which he described in a Playboy interview as "the most un-American thing I've ever seen in my whole life." However, the movie now holds a 94% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics' consensus reads, "A classic of the Western genre that broke with many of the traditions at the time, High Noon endures — in no small part thanks to Gary Cooper's defiant, Oscar-winning performance." You can watch the movie at home on Pluto TV.

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