Clint Eastwood’s 132-Minute War Thriller Finds New Free Streaming Home

While Spike Lee has had a long-standing feud with Quentin Tarantino, did you know he also feuded with the legendary Clint Eastwood? The incident happened two decades ago, over an ambitious project orchestrated by Eastwood. Lee believed Eastwood had made grave historical errors in his film and confronted him about it. Eastwood fired back, and ultimately Steven Spielberg had to mediate. Now the film at the center of the conflict has been added to a free streaming platform for a new generation to discover.

Interestingly, not only is this the film's 20th-anniversary year, it also happens to be a robust period for the war movie genre. This year alone, audiences have seen the World War II thriller Pressure, starring Andrew Scott and Brendan Fraser; the 20-episode documentary series World War II with Tom Hanks; the survival thriller Lucky Strike; and, more recently, Netflix's The Mosquito Bowl.

Eastwood's World War II film was released in 2006 alongside an even more acclaimed companion piece. Together, the two films offered contrasting perspectives of the same historical period. While one unfolded from the American point of view, the other offered the Japanese perspective. The films arrived during a particularly introspective period for Eastwood, only two years before Gran Torino and shortly after Million Dollar Baby.

Here's Where You Can Watch Clint Eastwood's World War II Epic for Free

We're talking, of course, about Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima. Lee was particularly angry about the lack of Black representation in Flags of Our Fathers, and Eastwood insisted the film was intentionally designed to focus on only a handful of white characters. Lee responded with his own World War II epic in 2008, revolving exclusively around a Black contingent. However, like Flags of Our Fathers, Lee's film — Miracle at St. Anna — also underperformed at the box office, with $9 million against a reported budget of $45 million.

Flags of Our Fathers grossed $65 million worldwide against a reported budget of $90 million and sits at a "Certified Fresh" 76% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. You can watch the film on Pluto TV this month. Letters from Iwo Jima, meanwhile, made $68 million worldwide against a reported budget of less than $20 million and received a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars. Eastwood retired in 2024 after a seven-decade career, with the courtroom drama Juror #2.