100-Year-Old Buster Keaton Stunt Spectacle Finds New Life on Free Streaming

A classic comedy film that turned 100 years old this year is streaming for free on a new platform. Such is the classic film's legacy that it not only inspired some of the slapstick humor in one 2026 film, but also another — the film's influence could be felt in movies as recent as Zach Cregger's critically lauded Resident Evil reboot and Minions & Monsters. It's widely considered one of the greatest films ever made, but at the time of its release, it was only a modest box-office hit. Its apparent underperformance caused troubles for its legendary filmmaker, and following the film's release and mediocre performance, his creative freedom was significantly curtailed.

However, history has been extremely generous to his work, particularly the 1926 classic. Decades later, the filmmaker said about the film, "I was more proud of that picture than any I ever made. Because I took an actual happening out of the history books, and I told the story in detail too." The movie was ostensibly based on a real story, but was presented as a broad comedy. Some of its greatest technical achievements involved a locomotive, and its imprint could be felt on a similar sequence in Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, the seventh installment of the landmark action franchise starring Tom Cruise.