You Have Until January To Stream Clint Eastwood’s Supernatural Western

Clint Eastwood has directed 40 movies over the course of his career, and has run the gamut from action to Westerns to war films, and even occasionally to comedy, but it’s rare that his films touch on the supernatural. However, he blended horror elements into his first Western, 1973’s High Plains Drifter. Unfortunately, the film is about to drift into the great beyond, because you’ve only got until January 1, 2026, to watch it on Netflix.

The film was penned by Ernest Tidyman, the novelist who created Shaft; he was fresh off winning an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for The French Connection. It was only Eastwood’s second film in the director’s chair, after 1971’s Play Misty For Me, and he freely modified Tidyman’s script; initially, his mysterious main character, the Stranger, was said to be a dead man’s brother, but Eastwood deleted that reference to give the film a supernatural bent, making it seem that the Stranger could be the dead man returned to life as a revenant. The film was a critical and commercial success and helped establish Eastwood as a premier director; he’d return to the Western genre many times over the course of his career, eventually winning a directing Oscar for his farewell to the genre, Unforgiven.

What Is ‘High Plains Drifter’ About?

Eastwood plays the man known only as the Stranger, who rides out of the desert into the town of Lago. The Stranger knows Lago’s dark secret: when Marshal Jim Duncan, who bore a remarkable resemblance to the Stranger (because he was played by Eastwood’s longtime stunt double, Buddy Van Horn) discovered the town’s gold mine was on federal land and would have to be shut down, they hired a gang of outlaws to kill him and buried him in an unmarked grave. He also knows they have a problem: the townspeople framed the outlaws for stealing gold to get out of paying them, and now they’re on their way back to town to get revenge. The Stranger will be waiting for them when they arrive…but first, he’s going to paint the town red.

Curiously, Eastwood would direct and star in another Western a decade later, 1985’s Pale Rider, which shares many common elements with High Plains Drifter. It, too, concerns a mysterious nameless man played by Eastwood, here known as Preacher, who rides into town; like the Stranger, he may be a dead man returned to life.

High Plains Drifter leaves Netflix on January 1, 2026. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.