The Desperado

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

Following the Civil War, headstrong rancher Thomas Dunson decides to lead a perilous cattle drive from Texas to Missouri. During the exhausting journey, his persistence becomes tyrannical in the eyes of Matthew Garth, his adopted son and protégé.

When Tex is brought in to fight in a range war between the cowmen and the nesters, he meets his old outlaw boss Lassiter. He learns Lassiter is behind the feud when Lassiter asks him to join up with his gang. Tex refuses and instead sets out to stop the feud but no one will believe him that Lassiter is responsible.

Having fled to Mexico from the U.S. many years ago for killing his father's murderer, Martin Brady travels to Texas to broker an arms deal for his Mexican boss, strongman Governor Cipriano Castro. Brady breaks a leg and while recuperating in Texas the gun shipment is stolen. Complicating matters further the wife of local army major Colton has designs on him, and the local Texas Ranger captain makes him a generous offer to come back to the states and join his outfit. After killing a man in self-defense, Brady slips back over the border and confronts Castro who is not only unhappy that Brady has lost his gun shipment but is about to join forces with Colton to battle the local raiding Apache Indians.

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

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.

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.

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.

After avenging his family's brutal murder, Wales is pursued by a pack of soldiers. He prefers to travel alone, but ragtag outcasts are drawn to him - and Wales can't bring himself to leave them unprotected.

In this western, fake settlers make themselves at home on an ex-ranger's ranch and drive him away. A shady newspaper publisher and a gambler then conspire to take over the land. Fortunately, another ranger endeavors to help his pal. Enlisting the aide of his fellow rangers, they get oust the homesteaders. The publisher and the gambler shoot each other and the retired ranger gets his ranch back.

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."