A Thrilling Film Noir Classic Starring Orson Welles Is Streaming For Free

You've heard of "Citizen Kane," the beloved 1941 classic directed by Orson Welles, but have you heard of "The Stranger," Welles' 1946 film that debuted to mass acclaim? "The Stranger" is a noir thriller about Mr. Wilson (Edward G. Robinson), an investigator chasing down a Nazi war criminal named Franz Kindler (Welles). The film has a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing, and you can watch it for free whenever you want.

More specifically, "The Stranger" (which is ranked #7 on /Film's list of best Orson Welles films) is currently streaming on Pluto, a free service where your only payment comes from the time you spend watching the ad breaks. It's also available in full on YouTube, and you can watch it without ads if you have YouTube Premium.

"The Stranger" is definitely worth checking out. It's one of the best noir films to come out of the 1940s, as well as one of the few Welles movies that were properly appreciated in their time. Whereas "Citizen Kane" was praised by critics but disappointed at the box office, "The Stranger" was a financial hit from day one, easily earning back its budget in terms of ticket sales.

"The Stranger is a "suspenseful melodrama which builds steadily to a hair-tingling climax, fraught with terror throughout and shrewdly balanced to get the most out of every story," as the critic for the Richmond Times-Dispatch wrote in 1946. The review also praised the film's "excellent performances" and the "novel and terrifying" manner in which the movie concludes the tale of its villain, played by Welles himself.

The general critic consensus upon its release was that "The Stranger" wasn't quite as deep as "Citizen Kane," but it was more straightforwardly entertaining and a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. Critics also praised Welles for pulling triple duty here; in addition to directing the movie and playing one of the leads, he also did some uncredited work on the film's script. As the review in The Harrow Observer put it at that time, "This first-rate thriller is not only dominated by one of those now familiar fierce-eyed performances of Welles, the actor, but also abounds in the stylish novelties of Welles, the director."

Not everyone loved the movie, however. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times criticized Welles' "boyishly bad" acting in the film and complained about the plot, writing, "The premise is not only farfetched, but the whole construction of the tale relieves very soon all the mystery and suspense that such a story should have. Thus, the whole thing becomes a routine and mechanical cat-and-rat chase, with the outcome completely apparent."

Did Crowther have a point about the film, or was the otherwise positive consensus for the movie well-deserved? The only way to find out is to watch "The Stranger" for yourself.