Nicolas Cage’s Gritty R-Rated Western Sets New Free Streaming Release Date

An R-rated Nicolas Cage Western is galloping onto free streaming soon.

The Oscar-nominated actor has starred in a wide variety of genres ever since he first rose to prominence with his breakout role in the 1983 teen romance Valley Girl. The genres in which he has dabbled include action (Con Air, Face/Off, Ghost Rider), horror (Longlegs, Mandy, Renfield), comedy (Peggy Sue Got Married, Vampire’s Kiss), sci-fi (Next, Knowing), and fantasy (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Season of the Witch). However, only four Nicolas Cage movies have been Westerns, and all four of them have debuted in the last five years.

Nicolas Cage Western Movies
Title	Year
Prisoners of the Ghostland	2021
Butcher’s Crossing	2022
The Old Way	2023
Gunslingers	2025

The title from Cage’s Western roster that is debuting on free streaming in less than two weeks is 2023’s The Old Way. The movie, which was directed by Brett Donowho (Acts of Violence) from a screenplay by Carl W. Lucas (2019’s The Wave), stars Nicolas Cage as Colton Briggs, a reformed gunslinger who seeks revenge for the murder of his wife in Montana in the late 1800s. The ensemble cast of the movie includes Ryan Kiera Armstrong (Star Wars: Skeleton Crew), Nick Searcy (Justified), Abraham Benrubi (ER), Shiloh Fernandez (2013’s Evil Dead), and Clint Howard (Apollo 13).

Tubi has announced that The Old Way will join the library of the free, ad-supported streaming service on May 7. This will occur just a few days after fellow Nicolas Cage features Face/Off, Lord of War, and Snake Eyes arrive on Tubi on May 1. These titles will all be joining the platform’s robust roster of Nicolas Cage titles, which already includes more than three dozen movies, including The Rock, Moonstruck, The Croods, Valley Girl, Peggy Sue Got Married, Color Out of Space, Matchstick Men, Leaving Las Vegas, Dream Scenario, and Honeymoon in Vegas.

Tubi’s announcement that The Old Way is coming to free streaming arrives at a time when the movie is not even available on any subscription streaming services, though it is available to rent and purchase on a variety of video on demand platforms.

By opening up The Old Way to a broader at-home audience, Tubi could be helping to elevate the stature of the modern Western movie, which had an under-the-radar debut in 2023. The movie only played in theaters in the Netherlands, United Kingdom, and Russia, grossing an underwhelming $60,000 worldwide. It also received a critical drubbing, earning a thoroughly Rotten score of 33% from critics on the review aggregator platform Rotten Tomatoes.

However, among verified audience members on the same platform, The Old Way has a far superior score of 70%, which is securely above the 60% threshold past which a title can be considered Fresh. This means that the Nicolas Cage movie has a chance to become a bona fide streaming success. If it continues to connect with audiences in the same way, its arrival on Tubi could help it to build a level of word of mouth that it couldn’t quite sustain when it first premiered three years ago.