The sleeper western with Tim Blake Nelson and Trace Adkins rides onto Netflix today

Here’s one for the Western crowd that might have slipped past you the first time. Old Henry – a film that barely made a peep in UK cinemas but quietly became a hit with genre fans – has just landed on Netflix. If you like your action with dust, desperation, and a few decent shootouts, this one’s worth a look.

Why is Old Henry Suddenly Popping Up Again?

The film originally dropped back in 2021, with not a lot of fuss, from an outfit called Shout! Studios. Critically, though, it did alright for itself – even ended up on the National Board of Review's Top Ten Independent Films list for that year. Over in the US, it unexpectedly topped the iTunes rental charts for ages, basically becoming that film people kept telling their dads to watch.

It’s directed (and written) by Potsy Ponciroli – not exactly a household name, though he seems to know his way around a slow-burn Western. The big pulls in the cast? Tim Blake Nelson and country singer/absolute unit Trace Adkins. Not a pairing I ever expected either, but it works surprisingly well.

The Plot, and Why It’s Actually Good

The set-up’s classic Western, only with a bit more grit. Nelson plays Henry, a widowed farmer just trying to keep his son alive and the local criminals out of his hair. Something goes sideways when a stranger turns up on the farm, battered and clutching a bag of money. Cue a group of men – who say they’re the law (they aren’t, obviously) – demanding the loot back.

Farmer Henry tries to keep the peace, but when it all goes south, he proves weirdly handy with a firearm. The implication is Henry might not be the harmless bloke he’s been pretending to be. If you like your Western protagonists with a bit of a past, this will be right up your alley.

'Old Henry is an action-Western about a widowed farmer and his son who warily take in a mysterious, injured man with a satchel of cash. When a posse of men claiming to be the law come for the money, the farmer must decide whom to trust. Defending against a siege of his homestead, he reveals a talent for gunslinging that surprises everyone, calling his true identity into question.'

The Cast Line-Up

• Tim Blake Nelson as Henry (yes, the Fargo bloke, just with more grit and a lot more guns)
• Trace Adkins doing the gruff thing as one of the outlaws
• Stephen Dorff, who you probably recognise from about a dozen action movies
• Scott Haze
• Gavin Lewis
• Richard Speight Jr.
• Max Arciniega
• Brad Carter

Worth Your Streaming Time?

If you like 'quiet hard man turns out to be an actual hard man' stories and want something a bit less shiny than your average Netflix Original, Old Henry will do the trick. It is, at heart, a small, tightly-wound Western, but the cast gives it some heft. Give it a go – you could do a lot worse.