The CowboysMovies like The Cowboys
- Key Features:
- Coming-of-age, Mentorship, Loss of innocence, Western, Cattle drive, Moral dilemma, Survival, Manhood, Farm, Late 19th century, Theft, Violence-moderate
- Tone:
- serious, earnest, dramatic
- Target Audience:
- Western enthusiasts, Fans of classic cinema, Viewers interested in coming-of-age stories, Those seeking moral dramas
- Emotional Arc:
- Innocence → Challenge → Loss
The Cowboys

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.
The Cowboys
A weary gunfighter attempts to settle down with a homestead family, but a smouldering settler and rancher conflict forces him to act.

A young cattle farmer is approached by an unscrupulous veterinarian to make a shady deal with a notorious beef trader.

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.

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.

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.

A group of young gunmen, led by Billy the Kid, become deputies to avenge the murder of the rancher who became their benefactor. But when Billy takes their authority too far, they become the hunted.

Chicago hotel clerk Frank Harris dreams of life as a cowboy, and he gets his chance when, jilted by the father of the woman he loves, he joins Tom Reece and his cattle-driving outfit. Soon, though, the tenderfoot finds out life on the range is neither what he expected nor what he's been looking for...

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.

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.

The year is 1949. A young Texan named John Grady finds himself without a home after his mother sells the ranch where he has spent his entire life. Lured south of the border by the romance of cowboy life and the promise of a fresh start, Cole and his pal embark on an adventure that will test their resilience, define their maturity, and change their lives forever.

New Mexico Territory, 1880. Rio Cutler and his older sister Sara must abandon their home after an unfortunate event happens. In their desperate flee to Santa Fe, they cross paths with the infamous outlaw Billy the Kid and his gang, who are ruthlessly pursued by a posse led by Sheriff Pat Garret.

An aging Texas cattle man who has outlived his time swings into action when outlaws kidnap his grandson.

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.

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.

After their mother dies and their father leaves them, teenage brothers Tex and Mason McCormick struggle to make it on their own.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

Three New York businessmen decide to take a "Wild West" vacation that turns out not to be the relaxing vacation they had envisioned.

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.

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.

Once a rising star of the rodeo circuit, and a gifted horse trainer, young cowboy Brady is warned that his riding days are over after a horse crushed his skull at a rodeo. In an attempt to regain control of his own fate, Brady undertakes a search for a new identity and what it means to be a man in the heartland of the United States.

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.

Two brothers discharged from the Confederate Army join a businessman for a cattle drive from Texas to Montana where they run into raiding Jayhawkers, angry Sioux, rough terrain and bad weather.

In the mid-19th century, Senator William J. Tadlock leads a group of settlers overland in a quest to start a new settlement in the Western US. Tadlock is a highly principled and demanding taskmaster who is as hard on himself as he is on those who have joined his wagon train. He clashes with one of the new settlers, Lije Evans, who doesn't quite appreciate Tadlock's ways. Along the way, the families must face death and heartbreak and a sampling of frontier justice when one of them accidentally kills a young Indian boy.

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

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.

In 1960s Tulsa, class divisions ignite a violent rivalry between the working-class Greasers and the privileged Socs. When a deadly encounter forces two Greasers, Ponyboy and Johnny, to flee, their struggle for survival and redemption exposes the fragile innocence and enduring bonds of youth on the wrong side of town.

While on his travel across the Southwestern United States, with his Jeep CJ Renegade and his chestnut colt named Joe Brown, Luke meets Matt, son of a friend of his, Moose, who is in jail. Moose asks Luke to take care of Matt, and to help him to take possession of a piece of land. So starts their travel, full of adventures...

Rich momma's boy Wade Kingsley Jr. an Eastern dude, tries to follow in his murdered father's footsteps by returning to the West to partner up with Slim Moseley Jr.,the son of his father's former partner. Wade overcomes Slim's initial reluctance to accept him by using his fortune to buy a prize cow and new car to help Slim in his job as foreman on the Kingsley family ranch, currently under siege by a gang of outlaws called "masked raiders." Wade generously tries to pay off the ranch's mortgage with $15,000 of his own money, but unfortunately neither "pardner" realizes that respected banker Dan Hollis, the son of their fathers' murderer, is the leader of the gang.

During the Klondike Gold Rush, a misanthropic cattle driver and his talkative elderly partner run afoul of the law in Alaska and are forced to work for a saloon owner to take her supplies into a newly booming but lawless Candian town.

A powerful rancher always protects his wild adult son by paying for damages and bribing witnesses, until his crimes become too serious to rectify.

A ruthless rancher, and his gang, use extremely long range rifles to kill the men who kidnapped his wife.

A one-time rodeo star and washed-up horse breeder takes a job from an ex-boss to bring the man's young son home from Mexico.

Chino Valdez is a loner horse breeder living in the old west. Partly a loner by choice, and partly because, being a 'half-breed', he finds himself unwelcome almost everywhere he goes. One day, a young runaway named Jimmy shows up at his door looking for work and a roof over his head. Reluctantly, Chino agrees to take him in and teach him the art of raising, breaking and breeding horses, until the pair finally begin to accept each other.

Juliet heads to her grandfather’s ranch with her mother for Christmas, where she meets a horse named Rodeo and young cowboy who change her life.

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.

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.

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.

An idealistic, modern-day cowboy struggles to keep his Wild West show afloat in the face of hard luck and waning interest.

A group of German boys are ordered to protect a small bridge in their home village during the waning months of the second world war. Truckloads of defeated, cynical Wehrmacht soldiers flee the approaching American troops, but the boys, full of enthusiasm for the "blood and honor" Nazi ideology, stay to defend the useless bridge. The film is based on a West German anti-war novel of the same name, written by Gregor Dorfmeister.

Young Travis Coates is left to take care of the family ranch with his mother and younger brother while his father goes off on a cattle drive in the 1860s. When a yellow mongrel comes for an uninvited stay with the family, Travis reluctantly adopts the dog.

Roy and Bo leave their small town the weekend after graduation for a short road trip to LA. Soon, they find themselves lashing out and leaving a trail of bodies behind them. The violence escalates throughout.

Auguste Maroilleur, an elderly farmer, exploits 400 hectares of crop land with the help of his family, over which he rules with an iron hand. Things go awry the day he discovers one of his grandsons is involved in drug traffic. To make matters worse, the reckless youth has hidden the white powder in the Maroilleur farm. Without a moment's hesitation, Auguste gets rid of the toxic substance but, of course, the mob has different views...

Lt. Col. Kirby Yorke is posted on the Texas frontier to defend settlers against depredations of marauding Apaches. Col. Yorke is under considerable stress by a serious shortage of troops of his command. Tension is added when Yorke's son (whom he hasn't seen in fifteen years), Trooper Jeff Yorke, is one of 18 recruits sent to the regiment.

When the experienced guide Vic accompanies the city boy Alan and his three friends on their first wilderness experience, he not only hopes to teach the four boys lessons about the wilderness, but about themselves. Vic pushes them to the limit. Soon after alienating the boys, Vic finds himself in desperate need of help and must rely on his students in order to survive.

Introverted Girona student Nacho meets two delinquents from the city's Chinatown and gets caught up in a summer onslaught of burglaries and hold ups that will change his life.

Three cowboys, mistaken for members of an outlaw gang, are relentlessly pursued by a posse.

A retired rodeo legend risks it all to save his grandson. Facing his own painful past and the fears of his family, he enters a high-stakes bullriding competition as the oldest contestant ever. Along the way, he reconciles old wounds with his estranged daughter and proves that true courage is found in the fight for family.

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.

When a Midwest town learns that a corrupt railroad baron has captured the deeds to their homesteads without their knowledge, a group of young ranchers join forces to take back what is rightfully theirs. They will become the object of the biggest manhunt in the history of the Old West and, as their fame grows, so will the legend of their leader, a young outlaw by the name of Jesse James.

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.

J.D. Cahill is the toughest U.S. Marshal they've got, just the sound of his name makes bad guys stop in their tracks, so when his two young boy's want to get his attention they decide to rob a bank. They end up getting more than they bargained for.

In the 1820s, a taciturn loner and skilled cook travels west to Oregon Territory, where he meets a Chinese immigrant also seeking his fortune. Soon the two team up on a dangerous scheme to steal milk from the wealthy landowner’s prized Jersey cow – the first, and only, in the territory.

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

A mischievous young boy, Tom Sawyer, witnesses a murder by the deadly Injun Joe. Tom becomes friends with Huckleberry Finn, a boy with no future and no family. Tom has to choose between honoring a friendship or honoring an oath because the town alcoholic is accused of the murder. Tom and Huck go through several adventures trying to retrieve evidence.

14-year-old Joe is the only child of Jeanette and Jerry — a housewife and a golf pro — in a small town in 1960s Montana. Nearby, an uncontrolled forest fire rages close to the Canadian border, and when Jerry loses his job (and his sense of purpose) he decides to join the cause of fighting the fire, leaving his wife and son to fend for themselves.

In 1864, during the American Civil War, Mexican cattleman Alvarez Kelly supplies the Union with cattle until unexpected circumstances force him to change his customers.

Rollins' gang wants to grab land by inciting the settlers in a war against the Indians but Winnetou and Old Shatterhand try to keep the peace, until Rollins frames Winnetou up for the murder of Jicarilla Chief's son.

An oppressed Mexican peasant village hires seven gunfighters to help defend their homes.

When their brother Frank is killed by an outlaw, brothers Bob Dalton, Emmett Dalton and Gray Dalton join their local sheriff's department. When they are cheated by the law, they turn to crime, robbing trains and anything else they can steal from over the course of two years in the early 1890's. Trying to out do Jesse James, they attempt to rob two banks at once in October of 1892, and things get ugly

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.

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.

Three of the original five "young guns" — Billy the Kid, Jose Chavez y Chavez, and Doc Scurlock — return in Young Guns, Part 2, which is the story of Billy the Kid and his race to safety in Old Mexico while being trailed by a group of government agents led by Pat Garrett.

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.

Set in northern Australia before World War II, an English aristocrat who inherits a sprawling ranch reluctantly pacts with a stock-man in order to protect her new property from a takeover plot. As the pair drive 2,000 head of cattle over unforgiving landscape, they experience the bombing of Darwin by Japanese forces firsthand.

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.

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.

After moving to Pasadena, Texas, country boy Bud Davis starts hanging around a bar called Gilley's, where he falls in love with Sissy, a cowgirl who believes the sexes are equal. They eventually marry, but their relationship is turbulent due to Bud's traditional view of gender roles. Jealousy over his rival leads to their separation, but Bud attempts to win Sissy back by triumphing at Gilley's mechanical bull-riding competition.

Hud Bannon is a ruthless young man who tarnishes everything and everyone he touches. Hud represents the perfect embodiment of alienated youth, out for kicks with no regard for the consequences. There is bitter conflict between the callous Hud and his stern and highly principled father, Homer. Hud's nephew Lon admires Hud's cheating ways, though he soon becomes too aware of Hud's reckless amorality to bear him anymore. In the world of the takers and the taken, Hud is a winner. He's a cheat, but, he explains, "I always say the law was meant to be interpreted in a lenient manner."

In the western part of the French Alps: After the drunk driving death of his father, 18-year-old Totone must look after his younger sister. He pursues a €30k Comté cheese award he has no hope of winning. Good thing Marie-Lise takes a liking for him!

Troy and his young transgender son Joe are on the run from his conservative mother in the Montana wilderness, with a detective in hot pursuit.

An aging group of outlaws look for one last big score as the "traditional" American West is disappearing around them.

A down-on-his-luck American Indian recently released from jail is offered the chance to "star" as the victim of a snuff film, the resulting pay of which could greatly help his poverty stricken family.

Four unwitting heroes cross paths on their journey to the sleepy town of Silverado. Little do they know the town where their family and friends reside has been taken over by a corrupt sheriff and a murderous posse. It's up to the sharp-shooting foursome to save the day, but first they have to break each other out of jail, and learn who their real friends are.

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

Jim Craig has lived his first 18 years in the mountains of Australia on his father's farm. The death of his father forces him to go to the lowlands to earn enough money to get the farm back on its feet.

The coming-of-age story of Cayden Richards. Forced to hit the road after the murder of his parents, Cayden wanders lost without purpose... Until he meets a certifiable lunatic named Wild Joe who sets him on a path to the ominous town of Lupine Ridge to hunt down the truths of his history. But in the end| who's really hunting whom?

Following the murder of her father by a hired hand, a 14-year-old farm girl sets out to capture the killer. To aid her, she hires the toughest U.S. Marshal she can find—a man with 'true grit'—Reuben J. 'Rooster' Cogburn.

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.

The rough-hewn boss of a lumber crew courts trouble when he steps in to protect the youngest member of his team from an abusive father.

A simple yet proud rancher conspires to murder his wife for financial gain, convincing his teenage son to participate.

The comedic adventures of an introverted boy left on the doorstep of a pair of reluctant, eccentric great-uncles, whose exotic remembrances stir the boy's spirit and re-ignite the men's lives.

A stranger stumbles into the desert town of Absolution with no memory of his past and a futuristic shackle around his wrist. With the help of mysterious beauty Ella and the iron-fisted Colonel Dolarhyde, he finds himself leading an unlikely posse of cowboys, outlaws, and Apache warriors against a common enemy from beyond this world in an epic showdown for survival.

A domineering but charismatic rancher wages a war of intimidation on his brother's new wife and her teen son, until long-hidden secrets come to light.

High-school students start a vigilante group in their neighbourhood but, as their power increases, they become more abusive and dangerous.

Two teenage boys find a fugitive hiding out on an island in the Mississippi River and help him reunite with his lover and escape an avenging family and their armed posse.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Tensions erupt within an Arizona cattle baron's household when his three sons vie for control of the ranch.

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.


