Florence Pugh’s Netflix Western Is Officially a Colossal Streaming Hit

Published Oct 21, 2026, 9:15 PM EDT

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

He 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 of introducing audiences to a whole new world of cinema.

Despite competition from flashier titles, an old-fashioned Western limited series has emerged as a massive new hit on Netflix. The show benefited from an unusually robust marketing campaign and the presence of major stars, two of whom are part of the record-breaking Marvel Cinematic Universe. The show premiered to positive reviews on October 1, and has spent three full weeks in the upper tier of Netflix's weekly viewership charts. The show is on track to overtake the streamer's other major Western offering this year, the fellow literary adaptation Little House on the Prairie, which has accumulated 29 million views so far.

Little House on the Prairie has already been renewed for a second season; it marks another attempt by Netflix to lure the target demographic of Taylor Sheridan's Yellowstone franchise, which has turned Paramount+ into a destination over the last few years. In 2025, Netflix released the hit Western limited series American Primeval, which accumulated 46 million views. Two other Yellowstone-inspired neo-Westerns — The Waterfront and Ransom Canyon — have delivered mixed results for Netflix, with The Waterfront having been canceled after a single season.

Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which MCU Villain Do You Align With? Killmonger · Namor · Zemo · Thanos

Eight honest questions about how you actually are: what you do about something unfair, how long you will wait for what you want, who you are really loyal to, how easily you let a thing go. Answer them and we will tell you which one of these four you have more in common with than you would like. Every one of them thinks they are the reasonable person in the room.

🐆Killmonger(Black Panther)

🔱Namor(Wakanda Forever)

🎭Zemo(Civil War)

🧤Thanos(Infinity War)

FIND YOUR VILLAIN →

How do you react to something you think is unfair? All four of these men started here.

ALoudly, and I want the whole thing torn down. BI protect whoever it hurt, first and fast. CI say nothing, and I start planning. DI look for why it keeps happening at all.

NEXT QUESTION →

How long will you wait for something you want? Patience separates these four more than anything else.

ANot long, since I have waited long enough already. BAs long as my people stay safe meanwhile. CYears, if years are what it takes. DTime does not really come into it.

NEXT QUESTION →

Who are you actually loyal to? Answer for the real one, not the polite one.

AThe people nobody else turned up for. BMy own, and nobody outside that. COne person, and they are already gone. DAn idea, rather than any group of people.

NEXT QUESTION →

How do you win an argument? Everybody has one method and uses it every time.

ABy being angrier and more right. BBy making the cost of disagreeing obvious. CBy letting them talk until they trip over something. DBy explaining it until they run out of objections.

NEXT QUESTION →

How easily do you let something go? This is the question that makes villains out of people.

AI do not, and I can tell you exactly why. BOnce whoever caused it stops being a threat. CWhen the balance is settled, and not before. DInstantly, because it was never personal.

NEXT QUESTION →

What do you think about breaking the rules? Nobody on this list has ever felt guilty about it.

AThey were written by whoever benefits from them. BMine apply, and theirs do not reach me. CRules are a tool, and I use them precisely. DThe rule matters far less than the outcome.

NEXT QUESTION →

What do people say about you behind your back? You already know which one it is.

AThat I am far too angry about it. BThat I put my own above everybody else. CThat I am much quieter than I should be. DThat I am certain in a way that unnerves them.

NEXT QUESTION →

What would you do with real power? Eight questions in, this is the one that picks your villain.

AGive it to the people it was kept from. BUse it to shut my own people off from the world. CUse it to make the guilty face what they did. DUse it to fix the thing everybody refuses to face.

REVEAL MY VILLAIN →

The Case Is Made You Align With…

Four villains, and four arguments the films were honest enough to actually let them make. Here is the one you lean towards, the part of it that holds up, and the exact point where it stops holding up.

Erik Killmonger

You align with the one who was right about the problem and wrong about the solution. Killmonger is the most persuasive villain Marvel has produced because the film never pretends his anger came from nowhere.

You notice who was abandoned and you cannot let it go, which is a moral instinct before it is anything else.
His argument lands because Wakanda really did watch and do nothing, and the film makes T'Challa admit it out loud.
Where it breaks is the method, since a man who was failed by power decided the answer was to hold more of it.
Michael B. Jordan plays him as somebody performing certainty over grief, which is why the last scene of that film still works.

Namor

You align with the protector, which is the most understandable and most dangerous position on this list. Namor is not chasing power or revenge, he is doing whatever keeps his people hidden, and he has been doing it for centuries.

Your loyalty has a hard border around it, and everything inside that border matters far more to you than anything outside it.
Talokan is the best realised world Marvel has built since Wakanda, and the film makes you understand exactly what he is guarding.
His logic is airtight right up until it requires somebody else's people to pay for his people's safety.
He would rather be feared by the surface world forever than trust it once, and history has given him reasons.

Helmut Zemo

You align with the patient one, the only man on this list with no powers, no army and no hurry. Zemo lost his family in Sokovia and then spent years working out that you do not fight the Avengers, you introduce them to each other's secrets.

You go quiet when you are hurt, and the quiet is where the thinking happens.
Zemo is the only MCU villain who completely won, and he did it with a notebook, a plan and a great deal of self control.
His grief is real, and the film is careful never to let you forget that he started as an ordinary man with a family.
Where it fails is the cost, since taking apart the people who hurt him meant hurting a great many people who did not.

Thanos

You align with the one who decided the answer was arithmetic. Thanos is not angry and not grieving in any way he will admit to, he simply reached a conclusion and never once revisited it, which is precisely what makes him frightening.

You are capable of holding a position that costs you everything, and you would call that conviction rather than stubbornness.
Infinity War works because it is structured as his film, with a goal, a journey and a sacrifice, and the heroes are the obstacle.
The flaw in the plan is not the cruelty, it is that he never seriously considered a single alternative to it.
Josh Brolin plays him tired rather than triumphant, which is the choice that turned a purple giant into a real character.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

Here's Where Netflix's New Western Stands

But there was no pressure to return for the streamer's latest hit, East of Eden. Starring Florence Pugh, Christopher Abbott, Mike Faist, Ciarán Hinds, and Hoon Lee, the seven-episode series added 6 million views to its tally in its third week, and passed 25 million views and 175 million hours viewed in total. This comes after it amassed 18 million views in its first two weeks, despite competition from the supernatural thriller limited series Below. Created by Zoe Kazan, whose grandfather Elia Kazan directed the iconic 1955 East of Eden movie, the new show holds a "Certified Fresh" 86% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. The site's consensus reads, "Zoe Kazan imbues her legacy adaptation with delicious moral quandaries and sumptuous landscapes, but it's the expanded character work from Pugh and Lee that brings justice and dignity to this new canon of East of Eden." Pugh will soon be seen in the hotly anticipated movies Dune: Part Three and Avengers: Doomsday, which are slated to clash in theaters on December 18.

Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.

Release Date 2026 - 2026-00-00

Network Netflix

Directors Garth Davis

Here's Where Netflix's New Western Stands

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