Kevin Costner's 'Yellowstone' Replacement Movie Officially Arrives on Free Streaming

Published Oct 30, 2026, 5:12 AM EDT

Thomas Butt is a senior writer. An avid film connoisseur, Thomas actively logs his film consumption on Letterboxd and vows to connect with many more cinephiles through the platform. He is immensely passionate about the work of Martin Scorsese, John Ford, and Albert Brooks. His work can be read on Collider and Taste of Cinema. He also writes for his own blog, The Empty Theater, on Substack. He is also a big fan of courtroom dramas and DVD commentary tracks. For Thomas, movie theaters are a second home. A native of Wakefield, MA, he is often found scrolling through the scheduled programming on Turner Classic Movies and making more room for his physical media collection. Thomas habitually increases his watchlist and jumps down a YouTube rabbit hole of archived interviews with directors and actors. He is inspired to write about film to uphold the medium's artistic value and to express his undying love for the art form. Thomas looks to cinema as an outlet to better understand the world, human emotions, and himself.

After two audacious epics—one of which was a massive success (Dances With Wolves), and the other a calamitous flop (The Postman)—Kevin Costner opted to strip things down for his third effort as director, Open Range. Released in 2003 to modest critical and commercial success, the film, starring Costner, Robert Duvall, and Annette Bening, quietly proved to be the ideal formula for the Yellowstone star to take to television, where he became the face of the 21st-century Western. While its scope pales in comparison to his previous filmmaking credits and his latest film, the ill-fated Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1, Open Range remains Costner's finest directorial effort to date, as it honors the simplistic beauty of classic Westerns that he's been emulating throughout his career. For Yellowstone fans missing Costner's presence, it's time to check out this underrated gem on Tubi.

'Open Range' is Kevin Costner at His Best

Image via Touchstone Pictures

Ideally, Kevin Costner (or any director for that matter) would churn out a sturdy, entertaining, and thoughtful Western every few years. The genre that once ruled cinema and television in the 1950s is close to dormant these days, and now, audiences look back on movies like Open Range as unsung triumphs that we failed to celebrate upon release. Following "Boss" Spearman (Duvall) and his band of herders who confront a ruthless Montana cattle baron in a range war, the film is akin to a classic Hollywood Western directed by Howard Hawks—a story of independence and perseverance in the open West, and the interpersonal dynamics between noble cowboys and fast-shooting gunslingers.

Costner's direction in Open Range is not nearly as flashy as it was in Dances With Wolves, but it's certainly his most assured work of solid, studio filmmaking, and it lacks the self-indulgence of his previous work that needed to be grandiose for the sake of superficiality. The casting of Robert Duvall as the film's true lead was a notable signal of Costner's choice to restrain himself. Giving the starring role to the late Duvall, Costner additionally plays the senior actor's apprentice, the archetypal brash and reactive cowboy who needs a mentor. The Godfather and Apocalypse Now star gives one of his very best performances as the poised cattle leader who stands up to the perils of the open West, and Costner channeled his breakout roles in the late '80s and early '90s as idyllic heroes with an edge.

'Open Range' Created the Blueprint for Modern Westerns

If released today, Open Range, starring Diego Luna, Michael Gambon, Abraham Benrubi, and Michael Jeter, would undoubtedly be an 8-part streaming miniseries. For those who didn't know any better, one might think that Costner's film was actually another one of Taylor Sheridan's neo-Westerns for Paramount. Some of the best films of the 20th century have already said everything that needed to be said about American history and the expansion of the West. In that case, the wisest direction for modern Westerns to take is to use the genre as a backdrop for interpersonal dynamics between the various inhabitants of this world. Open Range captures the sweeping character drama of primetime soaps like Yellowstone, with the film tackling ideas of parenting, love, and one's journey to self-discovery.

Westerns represented a major inflection point for the United States, and the genre's harsh subjects reflect the darkest corners of the nation's history. Many films in the shadow of The Searchers and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly are pressured to live up to their lofty heights. Kevin Costner's previous directorial efforts, while they are admirably crafted, suggest that the actor-turned-filmmaker is too desperate to show the audience that he is deconstructing the period's legends. By freeing itself of the pressure of being the definitive Western of present times, Open Range allows the viewer to interpret the movie as an empty canvas, which bodes well for a genre known for stoic male protagonists with internalized emotions and vast landscapes set against a horizon.

Gorgeously photographed, superbly acted, and tonally balanced, Open Range offers an alternate side to Costner's screen persona. In another timeline, he could've been an exceptional journeyman filmmaker adapting whatever Western novel was at his disposal, or, to match contemporary trends, working off a Taylor Sheridan script. At their best, big-screen Westerns uphold the traditions of the classics while continuing to revamp the formula. Open Range is not quite a revisionist Western, but rather a postmodern Western of sorts.

Open Range