Westerns don’t need to be complicated to become iconic, and in fact, that might be what makes a Western a true Western. That’s especially true of this latest movie, 73 years later, as it hits streaming and prepares to wow audiences for the latest time, the first time, or perhaps even the last time. Even if you’ve never seen it, you’ve almost definitely seen movies influenced by it. Now, one of the most important Westerns ever made is back.
Shane arrives on Paramount+ June 1, and the film remains one of the genre’s most adored entries, currently holding a 94% score on Rotten Tomatoes. More than seven decades after its release, its influence is still everywhere. The film follows Shane, a mysterious drifter and gunfighter who rides into a Wyoming valley and becomes involved with a family of homesteaders being threatened by a ruthless cattle baron. As tensions build between settlers and ranchers, Shane tries desperately to avoid using violence, but the world around him keeps pulling him back toward the gun.
The cast includes Alan Ladd (This Gun for Hire) as Shane, Jean Arthur (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington) as Marian Starrett, Van Heflin (3:10 to Yuma) as Joe Starrett, Brandon De Wilde (Hud) as Joey Starrett, Jack Palance (City Slickers) as Jack Wilson, and Emile Meyer (Paths of Glory) as Rufus Ryker.
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
⚖️Mayor of Kingstown
01
Where does your power come from? In Sheridan’s world, everyone has leverage. The question is what kind.
02
Who do you put first, no matter what? Loyalty in Sheridan’s universe is always absolute — and always costly.
03
Someone crosses a line. How do you respond? Every Sheridan protagonist has a line. What matters is what happens after it’s crossed.
04
Where do you feel most in your element? Sheridan’s worlds are as much about place as they are about people.
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.
06
What are you actually fighting to hold onto? Every Sheridan character is fighting a war. The real question is what they’re defending.
07
How do you lead? Authority in Sheridan’s world is never given — it’s established, maintained, and constantly tested.
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.
09
What has your position cost you? Nobody gets to where these characters are without paying for it. The bill is always personal.
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.
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.
🤠 Yellowstone
🛢️ Landman
👑 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.
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.
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.
Was ‘Shane’ Successful?
Where to begin? Shane was very successful, both commercially, critically and perhaps more importantly, culturally. The film cost around $1.5 million to produce, earning $9 million in domestic theatrical rentals, so it was a huge commercial hit for Paramount. Some box office trackers list its domestic gross as around $20 million, but either way, the result was strong for the era. In today’s money, those theatrical rentals would be worth $108.4 million (based on the $9 million figure), but as much as $240.8 million going off the $20 million figure.
Critically, it was also a major success. Shane earned six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and two Supporting Actor nominations for Brandon De Wilde and Jack Palance. It won Best Cinematography, Color. But the enduring power of the movie is perhaps even more important than how it did theatrically, because the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1993 for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant,” and the AFI later ranked it among the greatest American films and one of the greatest Westerns ever made.
