7 Highest-Rated Westerns to Watch on Netflix in January 2024

If you climb in the saddle, be ready for the ride, they say. Well, now all you need is a Netflix subscription, as the service offers seven great Western movies available this January.

7. Blood & Gold

Release Date: May 26, 2023

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 85%

Blood & Gold is a German movie that has been dubbed a 'Nazi Spaghetti Western', and it certainly reads that way, as the film effectively combines cinematic elements from Sergio Leone to Quentin Tarantino: the movie may not be the most profound, but it's an incredibly fun, action-packed ride.

The plot centers on a defecting Wehrmacht veteran and the young woman who rescues him, defending the family farm from the Nazis. Together they must not only fight off the invaders, but also find the gold hidden by the Jewish family.

6. The Harder They Fall

Release Date: October 22, 2021

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 88%

The Harder They Fall is one of the few (and certainly worthy) examples of an all-black cast Western movie, as the story revolves around real-life black lawmen and outlaws in the second half of the 19th century.

Jeymes Samuel's directorial debut follows the bloody conflict between two black men and their gangs, cowboy/writer Nat Love and outlaw Rufus Buck. Love was portrayed by the now-despised Jonathan Majors, but don't let that put you off, because the movie has a talented ensemble cast, including Idris Elba and Zazie Beetz.

5. Blazing Saddles

Release Date: February 7, 1974

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 88%

Written in a postmodernist style, this film tells the story of Bart (Cleavon Little), who, with the help of his alcoholic friend Jim (Gene Wilder), becomes the first black sheriff of a small town on the American frontier threatened by the construction of a new railroad. Bart and Jim must protect the town not only from typical outlaws, but also from Ku Klux Klansmen, motorcycle gangs, and even Nazis.

4. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Release Date: November 9, 2018

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%

If you combine all the satirical charm of the Coen brothers and their Fargo- like moralizing narratives with the Western genre, you get this movie. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is an anthology of tragicomic stories that celebrate the bravery and lament the foolishness of all Old West adventurers.

3. The Furnace

Release Date: September 14, 2020

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

The Furnace is a great Australian Western that tells the adventurous story of an unsung chapter of Australian history, the heroes of which were the so-called 'Ghans', Muslim and Sikh camel drivers from India, Pakistan and Afghanistan who worked in the Australian outback. At the heart of the story is a young Afghan cameleer who forges an alliance with a Bushman while on the run with gold stolen from the British Crown.

2. The Power of the Dog

Release Date: November 17, 2021

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

The Power of the Dog is a dramatic story of the Wild West's downfall. Set in 1925, it follows two brothers, Phill (Benedict Cumberbatch ) and George (Jesse Plemons), who run a ranch in Montana. A young innkeeper (Kirsten Dunst) appears in their lives and George falls in love with her. Phill, sensing that his cowboy idyll is coming to an end, begins to convince himself that the woman is out to take their money, and so he goes into a frenzy of bullying her and her son.

1. High Plains Drifter

Release Date: April 6, 1973

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%

After numerous collaborations with Sergio Leone and Don Siegel, Clint Eastwood delivered his own Western in 1973, playing the same archetype of the quiet vagabond anti-hero stranded in a backwater frontier town. But Eastwood knew how to work with the genre, and so the classic Western story quickly takes a dark and disturbing supernatural turn.