Man Without a StarMovies like Man Without a Star
- Key Features:
- Western, Cowboy, Land dispute, Mentor-mentee relationship, Moral code, Survival, Frontier life, American West, Cattle drive, Justice, Lawlessness
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic, restrained
- Target Audience:
- Fans of classic Westerns, Viewers interested in historical dramas, Those who appreciate stories of moral conflict, People who enjoy tales of the American West
- Emotional Arc:
- Restlessness → Conflict → Resolution
Man Without a Star

A wandering cowboy gets caught up in a range war.
Man Without a Star
A weary gunfighter attempts to settle down with a homestead family, but a smouldering settler and rancher conflict forces him to act.

Heading east to Fort Worth to hire a schoolteacher for his frontier town home, Link Jones is stranded with singer Billie Ellis and gambler Sam Beasley when their train is held up. For shelter, Jones leads them to his nearby former home, where he was brought up an outlaw. Finding the gang still living in the shack, Jones pretends to be ready to return to a life crime.

A gunfighting stranger comes to the small settlement of Lago. After gunning down three gunmen who tried to kill him, the townsfolk decide to hire the Stranger to hold off three outlaws who are on their way.

Jubal Troop is a cowboy who is found in a weakened condition, without a horse. He is given shelter at Shep Horgan's large ranch, where he quickly makes an enemy in foreman Pinky, a cattleman who accuses Jubal of carrying the smell of sheep.

A stranger comes to town looking for his estranged wife. He finds her running the local girls. He also finds a town and sheriff afraid of their own shadow, scared of a landowner they never see who rules through his rowdy sidekicks. The stranger is a town tamer by trade, and he accepts a $500 commission to sort things out.

A melancholic gunfighter is drawn into a vengeful and tragic kidnapping plot by his widowed ex-lover.

John Russell, disdained by his "respectable" fellow stagecoach passengers because he was raised by Indians, becomes their only hope for survival when they are set upon by outlaws.

A mountain man who wishes to live the life of a hermit becomes the unwilling object of a long vendetta by Indians when he proves to be the match of their warriors in one-to-one combat on the early frontier.

An ex-lawman is hired to transport gold from a mining community through dangerous territory. But what he doesn't realize is that his partner and old friend is plotting to double-cross him.

Passing through a border town, a man is caught up in a Mexican's murder of a member of the town's most powerful family.

A bounty hunter trying to bring a murderer to justice is forced to accept the help of two less-than-trustworthy strangers.

While passing through the town of Bannock, a bunch of drunken cattlemen go overboard with their celebrating and accidentally kill an old man with a stray shot. They return home to Sabbath unaware of his death. Bannock lawman Jered Maddox later arrives there to arrest everyone involved on a charge of murder. Sabbath is run by land baron Vince Bronson, a benevolent despot, who, upon hearing of the death, offers restitution for the incident.

While filing for a divorce, beautiful ex-stripper Roslyn Taber ends up meeting aging cowboy-turned-gambler Gay Langland and former World War II aviator Guido Racanelli. The two men instantly become infatuated with Roslyn and, on a whim, the three decide to move into Guido's half-finished desert home together. When grizzled ex-rodeo rider Perce Howland arrives, the unlikely foursome strike up a business capturing wild horses.

Harry Collings returns home to his farm after drifting with his friend, Arch. His wife, who had given up on him, reluctantly allows him to stay, and soon believes that all will be well again. But then Harry has to make a difficult decision regarding his loyalties and priorities.

Sam Burton's second wife is a Kiowa, and their son is therefore born mixed-race. When a struggle starts between the whites and the native Kiowas, the Burton family is split between loyalties.

A man in search of revenge infiltrates a ranch, hidden in an inhospitable region, where its owner, Altar Keane, gives shelter to outlaws fleeing from the law in exchange for a price.

A former Union Army officer plans to sell out to Anchor Ranch and move east with his fiancée, but the low price offered by Anchor's crippled owner and the outfit's bullying tactics make him reconsider. When one of his hands is murdered he decides to stay and fight, utilizing his war experience. Not all is well at Anchor with the owner's wife carrying on with his brother who also has a Mexican woman in town.

Retired rodeo champion Jeff McCloud agrees to mentor novice rodeo contestant Wes Merritt against the wishes of Merritt's wife who fears the dangers of this rough sport.

Blaise Starrett is a rancher at odds with homesteaders when outlaws hold up the small town. The outlaws are held in check only by their notorious leader, but he is diagnosed with a fatal wound and the town is a powder keg waiting to blow.

At a Mexican ranch, fugitive O'Malley and pursuing Sheriff Stribling agree to help rancher Breckenridge drive his herd into Texas where Stribling could legally arrest O'Malley, but Breckenridge's wife complicates things.

Cattle baron John Chisum joins forces with Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett to fight the Lincoln County Land War in the New Mexico Territory of 1878.

A gunhand named Lane is hired by a widow, Mrs. Lowe, to find gold stolen by her husband so that she may return it and start fresh.

A marshal tries to bring the son of an old friend, an autocratic cattle baron, to justice for the rape and murder of his wife.

After a band of drunken thugs overruns a small Indian Nation town, killing Reverend Goodnight and raping the women folk, Eula Goodnight enlists the aid of US Marshal Cogburn to hunt them down and bring her father's killers to justice.

Former buffalo hunter and entrepreneur Wyatt Earp arrives in the lawless cattle town of Wichita Kansas. His skill as a gun-fighter makes him a perfect candidate for Marshal, but he refuses the job until he feels morally obligated to bring law and order to this wild town.

When the skeleton of his murdered predecessor is found, Sheriff Sam Deeds unearths many other long-buried secrets in his Texas border town.

An experienced bounty hunter helps a young sheriff learn the meaning of his badge.

Two friends hired to police a small town that is suffering under the rule of a rancher find their job complicated by the arrival of a young widow.

The murder of her father sends a teenage tomboy on a mission of 'justice', which involves avenging her father's death. She recruits a tough old marshal, 'Rooster' Cogburn because he has 'true grit', and a reputation of getting the job done.

Wealthy rancher Bick Benedict and dirt-poor cowboy Jett Rink both woo Leslie Lynnton, a beautiful young woman from Maryland who is new to Texas. She marries Benedict, but she is shocked by the racial bigotry of the White Texans against the local people of Mexican descent. Rink discovers oil on a small plot of land, and while he uses his vast, new wealth to buy all the land surrounding the Benedict ranch, the Benedict's disagreement over prejudice fuels conflict that runs across generations.

The Man With No Name enters the Mexican village of San Miguel in the midst of a power struggle among the three Rojo brothers and sheriff John Baxter. When a regiment of Mexican soldiers bearing gold intended to pay for new weapons is waylaid by the Rojo brothers, the stranger inserts himself into the middle of the long-simmering battle, selling false information to both sides for his own benefit.

Cole Thornton, a gunfighter for hire, joins forces with an old friend, Sheriff J.P. Harrah. Together with a fighter and a gambler, they help a rancher and his family fight a rival rancher that is trying to steal their water.

With his bronco-busting career on its last legs, Junior Bonner heads to his hometown to try his luck in the annual rodeo. But his fond childhood memories are shattered when he finds his family torn apart by his greedy brother and hard-drinking father.

A former gunslinger is forced to take up arms again when he and his cattle crew are threatened by a corrupt lawman.

When his cattlemen abandon him for the gold fields, rancher Wil Andersen is forced to take on a collection of young boys as his cowboys in order to get his herd to market in time to avoid financial disaster. The boys learn to do a man's job under Andersen's tutelage, however, neither he nor the boys know that a gang of cattle thieves is stalking them.

Jake Wade breaks Clint Hollister out of jail to pay off an old debt, though it's clear there is some pretty deep hostility between them. They part, and Jake returns to his small-town marshal's job and his fiancée only to find he has been tracked there by Hollister. It seems they were once in a gang together and Jake knows where the proceeds of a bank hold-up are hidden. Hollister and his sidekicks make off into the hills, taking along the trussed-up marshal and his kidnapped bride-to-be to force the lawman to show them where the loot is.

Amid the dust storms and economic depression of Dust Bowl Era Oklahoma, Eugene Evans finds his family farm on the brink of foreclosure. Discovering fugitive bank robber Allison Wells hiding in his small town, he is torn between claiming the bounty on her head and his growing attraction to the seductive criminal.

Ageing, wealthy, rancher and self-made man, George Washington McLintock is forced to deal with numerous personal and professional problems. Seemingly everyone wants a piece of his enormous farmstead, including high-ranking government men and nearby Native Americans. As McLintock tries to juggle his various adversaries, his wife—who left him two years previously—suddenly returns. But she isn't interested in George; she wants custody of their daughter.

A renowned former army scout is hired by ranchers to hunt down rustlers but finds himself on trial for the murder of a boy when he carries out his job too well. Tom Horn finds that the simple skills he knows are of no help in dealing with the ambitions of ranchers and corrupt officials as progress marches over him and the old west.

Forced to trade his valuable furs for a well-educated escaped slave, a rugged trapper vows to recover the pelts from the Indians and later the renegades that killed them.

On the way to pick up the bounty on a wanted murderer, a bounty hunter stops at a staging post where he is forced to continue his journey with two outlaws who want the murderer for their own reasons and a recently-widowed woman, with the murderer's brother and his men in hot pursuit.

A fiercely independent cowboy arranges to have himself locked up in jail in order to then escape with an old friend who has been sentenced to the penitentiary.

Joseph "Doc" Frail is a doctor with a past he's trying to outrun. While in Montana, he comes across a mining camp with a hanging tree and rescues a man named Rune from the noose. With Rune as his servant, Frail decides to settle down, and he takes over as town doctor. He meets Elizabeth, who is suffering from shock, and the two soon fall in love. But when Elizabeth is attacked, Frail's attempt to help her lands them both in trouble.

A small-town sheriff in the American West enlists the help of a disabled man, a drunk, and a young gunfighter in his efforts to hold in jail the brother of the local bad guy.

As a Civil War veteran spends years searching for a young niece captured by Indians, his motivation becomes increasingly questionable.

Will Kane, the sheriff of a small town in New Mexico, learns a notorious outlaw he put in jail has been freed, and will be arriving on the noon train. Knowing the outlaw and his gang are coming to kill him, Kane is determined to stand his ground, so he attempts to gather a posse from among the local townspeople.

A peace-loving, part-time sheriff in the small town of Firecreek must take a stand when a gang of vicious outlaws takes over his town.

Marshall Jed Cooper survives a hanging, vowing revenge on the lynch mob that left him dangling. To carry out his oath for vengeance, he returns to his former job as a lawman. Before long, he's caught up with the nine men on his hit list and starts dispensing his own brand of Wild West justice.

Aging sidekick Lefty Brown has ridden with Eddie Johnson his entire life. But when a rustler kills Eddie, Lefty is forced from his partner’s shadow and must confront the ugly realities of frontier justice.

Running from the law after a bank robbery in Mexico, Dad Longworth finds an opportunity to take the stolen gold and leave his partner Rio to be captured. Years later, Rio escapes from the prison where he has been since, and hunts down Dad for revenge. Dad is now a respectable sheriff in California, and has been living in fear of Rio's return.

A stranger in a Western cattle-town behaves with remarkable self-assurance, establishing himself as a man to be reckoned with. The reason appears with his stock: a herd of sheep, which he intends to graze on the range. The horrified inhabitants decide to run him out at all costs.

Monte Walsh is an aging cowboy facing the ending days of the Wild West era. As barbed wire and railways steadily eliminate the need for the cowboy, Monte and his friends are left with fewer and fewer options. New work opportunities are available to them, but the freedom of the open prarie is what they long for. Eventually, they all must say goodbye to the lives they knew, and try to make a new start.

Will Penny, an aging cowpoke, takes a job on a ranch which requires him to ride the line of the property looking for trespassers or, worse, squatters. He finds that his cabin in the high mountains has been appropriated by a woman whose guide to Oregon has deserted her and her son. Too ashamed to kick mother and child out just as the bitter winter of the mountains sets in, he agrees to share the cabin until the spring thaw. But it isn't just the snow that slowly thaws; the lonely man and woman soon forget their mutual hostility and start developing a deep love for one another.

Bill Meceita, a boy whose family was murdered in front of him by a gang, sets out 15 years later to exact revenge. On his journey, he finds himself continually sparring and occasionally cooperating with Ryan, a gunfighter on his own quest for vengeance, who knows more than he says about Bill's tragedy.

A man and his partner arrive at a small Western town to kill its most powerful man because the former blames him for his wife's death.

Val Xavier, a drifter of obscure origins, arrives at a small town and gets a job in a store run by Lady Torrence. Her husband, Jabe M. Torrance, is dying of cancer. Val is pursued by Carol Cutere, the enigmatic local tramp-of-good-family.

After moving to a new town, troublemaking teen Jim Stark is supposed to have a clean slate, although being the new kid in town brings its own problems. While searching for some stability, Stark forms a bond with a disturbed classmate, Plato, and falls for local girl Judy. However, Judy is the girlfriend of neighborhood tough, Buzz. When Buzz violently confronts Jim and challenges him to a drag race, the new kid's real troubles begin.

When vigilante land baron David Braxton hangs one of the best friends of cattle rustler Tom Logan, Logan's gang decides to get even by purchasing a small farm next to Braxton's ranch. From there the rustlers begin stealing horses, using the farm as a front for their operation. Determined to stop the thefts at any cost, Braxton retains the services of eccentric sharpshooter Robert E. Lee Clayton, who begins ruthlessly taking down Logan's gang.

A scout leading a wagon train through hostile Indian country gets involved with a Sioux chief's daughter.

In the depression, Chaney, a strong silent streetfighter, joins with Speed, a promoter of no-holds-barred street boxing bouts. They go to New Orleans where Speed borrows money to set up fights for Chaney, but Speed gambles away any winnings.

In the Old West, a 17-year-old Scottish boy teams up with a mysterious gunman to find the woman with whom he is infatuated.

At a desolate relay station in the west, a stagecoach attendant and a stranded woman traveller are held captive by a band of escaped convicts.

A hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity.

Double-crossed and left without water in the desert, Cable Hogue is saved when he finds a spring. It is in just the right spot for a much needed rest stop on the local stagecoach line, and Hogue uses this to his advantage. He builds a house and makes money off the stagecoach passengers. Hildy, a prostitute from the nearest town, moves in with him. Hogue has everything going his way until the advent of the automobile ends the era of the stagecoach.

A mysterious preacher protects a humble prospector village from a greedy mining company trying to encroach on their land.

When a handful of settlers survive an Apache attack on their wagon train they must put their lives into the hands of Comanche Todd, a white man who has lived with the Comanches most of his life and is wanted for the murder of three men.

Two tough westerners bring home a group of settlers who have spent years as Comanche hostages.

Outlaw and self-appointed lawmaker Judge Roy Bean rules over an empty stretch of the West that gradually grows, under his iron fist, into a thriving town, while dispensing his his own quirky brand of frontier justice upon strangers passing by.

Detective Matthias Breecher, hired to track down the worst of the Confederate war criminals, roams the Old West seeking justice. His resolve is tested when he meets a determined pioneer woman who is far more than she seems.

A band of Mexicans find their U. S. land claims denied and all the records destroyed in a courthouse fire. Their leader, Louis Chama, encourages them to use force to regain their land. A wealthy landowner wanting the same decides to hire a gang of killers with Joe Kidd to track Chama.

When the law fails to punish a fellow rancher that has abused his horses, a Wyoming horse trader sacrifices it all in a quest for justice.

On the run after committing murder, an accountant encounters a strange Native American man who prepares him for his journey into the spiritual world.

Pat Garrett is hired as a lawman on behalf of a group of wealthy New Mexico cattle barons to bring down his old friend Billy the Kid.

During the last winter of the Civil War, cavalry officer Amos Dundee leads a contentious troop of Army regulars, Confederate prisoners and scouts on an expedition into Mexico to destroy a band of Apaches who have been raiding U.S. bases in Texas.

After fierce war chief Ulzana and a small war party jump the reservation bent on murder and terror, an inexperienced young lieutenant is assigned to track him down.

On the outskirts of the Civil War, a boy is sent north by a bounty hunter gang to retrieve a wanted man.

An English slave trader is marooned on a remote tropical island, forced to fend for himself and deal with crushing loneliness.

When a young rancher crosses paths with a Lakota girl from a nearby reservation, her mysterious disappearance sparks a search that uncovers a harrowing past and hints at a dire future.

A mute gunslinger fights in the defense of a group of outlaws and a vengeful young widow, against a group of ruthless bounty hunters.

Jim Douglass arrives in the small town of Rio Arriba in order to witness the hanging of the four men he believes murdered his wife. When the convicts escape, Jim tracks them into Mexico, determined to see that justice is done. But the farther Jim goes in his quest for vengeance, the more merciless he becomes, losing himself in an unrelenting spiral of hatred and violence.

After Drew Dixon, an upright young man, is sent west by his religious family to avoid being drafted into the Civil War, he drifts across the land with a loose confederation of young vagrants.

Jack Beauregard, an aging gunman of the Old West, only wants to retire in peace and move to Europe, but a young gunfighter known as "Nobody" who idolizes Beauregard wants him to go out in a blaze of glory. So, he arranges for Jack to face the 150-man gang known as The Wild Bunch and earn his place in history.

An itinerant farmer and his young son help a heart-of-gold saloon singer search for her estranged husband.

An intimate story of the enduring bond of friendship between two hard-living men, set against a sweeping backdrop: the American West, post-World War II, in its twilight. Pete and Big Boy are masters of the prairie, but ultimately face trickier terrain: the human heart.

The neighbors of a frontier family turn on them when it is suspected that their beloved adopted daughter was stolen from the Kiowa tribe.

A man wanders out of the desert not knowing who he is. His brother finds him, and helps to pull his memory back of the life he led before he walked out on his family and disappeared four years earlier.

In the 1930s, bored European-American waitress Bonnie Parker falls in love with a European-American ex-con named Clyde Barrow and together they start a violent crime spree through the country, stealing cars and robbing banks.

History Professor Brad Fletcher heads west for his health, but falls in with Soloman Bennett's outlaw gang. Fascinated by their way of life, Fletcher finally takes over the gang, leading with a new 'efficient' ruthlessness.

Two young horse traders guide a Mormon wagon train to the San Juan Valley and encounter rugged terrain, the cutthroat Clegg gang, hospitable Navajo, and moral challenges on the journey.

Two drifters, one a gentle but slow giant, try to make money working the fields during the Depression so they can fulfill their dreams.

An assassin on a final assignment in Fuerteventura, to kill a man he has never met. When his target is delayed, he finds himself drawn to the island, people and a ghostly shipwreck. Instead of following protocol he stays. But when the target returns, the world has shifted. Before everything was simple, now nothing is.

Cowboys Beauregard Decker and Virgil Blessing attend a rodeo in Phoenix, where Decker falls in love with beautiful cafe singer Cherie. He wants to take Cherie back to his native Montana and marry her, but she dreams of traveling to Hollywood and becoming famous. When she resists his advances, Decker forces Cherie onto the bus back to Montana with him, but, when the bus makes an unscheduled stop due to bad weather, the tables are turned.

While the Civil War rages on between the Union and the Confederacy, three men – a quiet loner, a ruthless hitman, and a Mexican bandit – comb the American Southwest in search of a strongbox containing $200,000 in stolen gold.

An ex-con seeks revenge on the man who put him in prison by planning a robbery of the latter's stagecoach, which is transporting gold. He enlists the help of a partner, who could be working for his nemesis.

Charlie Anderson, a farmer in Shenandoah, Virginia, finds himself and his family in the middle of the Civil War he wants nothing to do with. When his youngest boy is taken prisoner by the North, the Civil War is forced upon him.

A tough marshal with political ambitions leads an elite posse to capture a notorious train robber and his gang.

American ne'er-do-well Joe January is hired to take Paul Bonnard on an expedition into the desert in search of treasure.


