The Left Handed Gun

The Left Handed Gun (1958) is Arthur Penn's western, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Paul Newman plays William Bonney — Billy the Kid — a drifting young gunman who finds a rare patch of stability working for English rancher John Tunstall.

Then Tunstall is gunned down by a rival's men, and the law looks the other way. Billy answers the only way he knows how: one bullet at a time. His private vendetta spirals into open range war across the New Mexico Territory and wrecks the fragile amnesty meant to bring peace there. Newman's Billy isn't a cold killer. He's a confused kid who never learned where revenge ends.

This was Penn's first film, years before Bonnie and Clyde, built from a Gore Vidal teleplay. It reads the Old West legend through psychology rather than shootouts, which is exactly why it still stands apart from the studio westerns around it. Stream The Left Handed Gun (1958) online on iFILM.