Red Rock West, a twisty thriller from 1993 starring an uncommonly subdued Nicolas Cage, is one of the best neo-noirs of the 90s. But you won’t see it mentioned much on social media or included in what-to-stream lists, because Red Rock West is unavailable on streaming platforms – a fate that now renders it all but nonexistent. Even many Cage fans haven’t seen it.
In 2021, when I needed to watch Red Rock West for a book I was writing about Cage, I accessed it the same way I would have a decade before: I rented the DVD from Netflix. Not only did I get to see it without crawling around sketchy torrent sites, I also got an insightful director’s commentary.
