Knight in Saturday Review remarked that Eastwood had "absorbed the approaches of Siegel and Leone and fused them with his own paranoid vision of society". Jon Landau of Rolling Stone concurred, noting "thematic shallowness" and "verbal archness"; but he expressed approval of the dramatic scenery and cinematography. Nigel Andrews of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote that "after Play Misty For Me, High Plains Drifter emerges as a disappointingly sterile exercise in style, suggesting that the first thing Eastwood should do as a director is forget the lessons he has learned from other film-makers and start to forge a convincing style of his own." John Wayne criticized the film's iconoclastic approach; in a letter to Eastwood, he wrote, "That isn't what the West was all about. That isn't the American people who settled this country." The film was recognized by American Film Institute in 2008 on AFI's 10 Top 10 in the category "Nominated Western Film". Home media High Plains Drifter was first released on DVD by Universal Studios Home Video on February 24, 1998. It made its Blu-ray debut on October 15, 2013, with a newly remastered transfer, and was reissued on October 27, 2020, by Kino Lorber with commentary tracks and new interviews. Legacy American musician Kirk Hammett included a song named High Plains Drifter, which takes its title from the film, on his 2022 extended play, Portals. Speaking about the composition, Hammett said he didn't set out to write a song based on the movie, but upon finishing it, he realized it "conveyed the same sentiment as the film, so the piece was christened accordingly." See also List of American films of 1973 Pale Rider Weird West References Bibliography Further reading Guérif, François (1986). Clint Eastwood, p. 94. St Martins Pr. ISB External links Cast of High Plains Drifter 1973 Western (genre) films 1973 films American films about revenge American supernatural thriller films American vigilante films American Western (genre) horror films 1970s English-language films Films about rape Films directed by Clint Eastwood Films set in California Films shot in California Malpaso Productions films Revisionist Western (genre) films Universal Pictures films 1970s Western (genre) horror films 1970s American films