20 best movies like Painted Desert (1938)

A woman and her group of selfless thieves rob a pharmacy and hit the road to distribute medication, but find themselves trapped in the fringe lands of a law-less psychedelic city.

Lee, a former Western film icon, is living a comfortable existence lending his golden voice to advertisements and smoking weed. After receiving a lifetime achievement award and unexpected news, Lee reexamines his past, while a chance meeting with a sardonic comic has him looking to the future.

In the wild west con-man 'Candy' Johnson heads to Nevada to set up his own gambling den and teams up with Lucy Cotton, a young woman he meets there. This failed television pilot film is loosely based on Honky Tonk (1941), which starred Clark Gable.

New Federal marshal Len Merrick saves Tim Keith from lynching at the hands of the Roden clan, and hopes to get him to Santa Loma for trial. Vindictive Ned Roden, whose son Ed was killed, still wants personal revenge, and Tim would like to escape before Ned catches up with him again. Can the marshal make it across the desert with Tim and his daughter? Even if he makes it, will justice be served?

Mary Rutledge arrives from the east, finds her fiancé dead, and goes to work at the roulette wheel of Luis Chamalis' Bella Donna, a rowdy gambling house in San Francisco in the 1850s. She falls in love with miner Jim Carmichael and takes his gold dust at the wheel. She goes after him, Chamalis goes after her with intent to harm Carmichael.

Tim Hart (Tim McCoy), a former Texas Ranger, comes out of retirement to avenge the death of Lightnin' Ed (Frank LaRue), his foster father, who had been sent to Rainbow's End, to investigate a series of train robberies. He senses that George Johnson (Walter McGrail) and his henchman, Speck (Bob Kortman), head the robbery gang, especially after Speck makes an ambush attempt on his life.

The Arizona Kid (Warner Baxter) carries out his mission as a Robin Hood-type bandit while posing as a wealthy and carefree miner. He falls for an eastern girl, Virginia Hoyt (Carole Lombard), accompanied by presumably her brother, Dick Hoyt (Theodore von Eltz), actually her husband. The Kid's mine is raided and two of his friends are killed and he learns that Dick and Virginia are the culprits...

Ken Armstrong (Ken Maynard) finds himself a mine owner and a daddy simultaneously when a friend dies and wills him his mine and his baby. The outlaws eying the mine try to frame the hero for the death.

When his ward seeks protection with rival cattleman John Stewart, embittered, jealous rancher Wick Campbell hires ten outlaws to help him seize power in the territory.

Drifter Cole Harden is accused of stealing a horse and faces hanging by self-appointed Judge Roy Bean, but Harden manages to talk his way out of it by claiming to be a friend of stage star Lillie Langtry, with whom the judge is obsessed, even though he has never met her. Tensions rise when Harden comes to the defense of a group of struggling homesteaders who Judge Bean is trying to drive away.

Two cowboys inherit a "social club" specializing in satisfying men.

Texas Ranger Ranny Maitland's father is feuding with his neighbor Lockhart. Pretending to be on Lockhart's side in the feud, Ranny goes to investigate. Meanwhile is father is murdered and Lockhart arrested.

The Western hero takes on a ruthless land baron whose henchmen killed his best friend.

When the local Banker jumps the Blaine's claim, they have men rob the bank to retrieve their money. When the men try to double-cross the Blains, a gunfight erupts and Jim Blaine gets away with the money. Mountie Bob McDonald gets Jim Blaine to return the money. Bob thinks the Banker was really behind the robbery and now uses the money to try and lure him into a trap.

Bob Marlow is sent undercover to an Arizona town where an outlaw gang, comprised of the six Tolliver brothers, have taken over the town and terrorizing the citizens. He comes to town, posing as an Eastern dude, and, through a series of incidents manages to get rid of three of the brothers, mostly through their own ineptness. The remaining brothers decide to get-while-the-gettin'-is good, rob the bank and head for the Mexican border. But Bob isn't far behind.

When silver is found in Virginia City, Lawyer John Storm leads a group from Indiana west. He soon has to defend them all in court against a company that is after their claims. Fighting a crooked Judge, he gets a mis-trial by telling how much each of the jurors was bribed. Then he gets the Governor to appoint a new Judge. But just as the retrial opens, the Judge learns his daughter has been kidnaped.

Not a Rowdy Yates in sight in this western set in a stop over for the California to St Louis mail stagecoach run. The two staff are warned that four dangerous outlaws are in the area, and together with a female stage passenger and her baby they wait patiently for the word to go round that these men have been caught. Can you guess where the outlaws decide to hide out while they plan a large gold robbery? What follows is a film that concentrates on small details (like attempts to slip a warning note to a passing stage, or to reach a hidden gun that the bad guys don't know about) as the captives try anything to get away from the outlaws.

Jim Davis is a man on the run. He comes across the body of a dead man wearing the badge of a marshal. He buries the body and takes the badge and rides on. At the next town, he is mistaken for the dead man, a legendary marshal named Brennan. The town sent for Marshal Brennan because they were facing a crisis that includes among other things an epidemic. The Stranger decides to stay as a way of hiding from the men chasing him. What he does not realize is that when he takes on the Badge of Marshal Brennan, he takes on the responsibilities of Marshal Brennan.

Bill Dana, a New York City playboy, can't resist the flaming flappers and red-hot mamas along the Great White Way, so he decides to head out west to his uncle's ranch in Wind River, Texas. But the gold-diggers and their relatives follow him.

The Transcontinental Broadcasting Company sends a sound truck and equipment to a ranch to obtain an audition from "Santa Fe" Evans and his musical cowboys (Oscar Gahan, Lloyd Perryman, Robert "Curley" Hoag, Rudy Sooter and Sherry Tansey.) Carver, arch enemy of Evans and a rival for the love of Carol Sheldon, fails in an attempt to spoil the audition. Carver frames Mr. Sheldon and Carol's brother Buddy on a charge, by Al Jensen, of receiving cattle stolen from him by Evans. Carver blames Evans for all of the Sheldon's troubles and, what with one thing or another, it looks like Evans and his cowhands will miss the big broadcast.

An outlaw kidnaps a dancer and her lover in order to win a bet.

The Prairie is set at the time of the Louisiana Purchase. Hoping to find their destiny in the new territory, the Bush Family heads southward in a covered wagon. Sharing the family's numerous dangers and hardships are Ellen Wade (Lenore Aubert), sole survivor of an Indian attack, and army mapmaker Paul Hover (Alan Baxter). Cousins Abiram (Russ Vincent) and Asa (Jack Mitchum) duke it out over Ellen's affections

A young man must defend his land from claim jumpers in this adaptation of the popular Zane Grey novel.

In the American Southwest of the 1950s, middle-aged vagabond Beaudray Demerille survives as a cardsharp who moves from town to town. But his latest victory brings him unwanted spoils in the form of Wanda Nevada, a fiery 13-year-old. At first Beaudray does everything he can to ditch Wanda -- until the girl chances upon a treasure map. But Wanda and Beaudray aren't the only ones after the loot, and they must contend with a ruthless pair of crooks.

The fourth of 12 singing Westerns starring the "Silvery-Voiced Baritone," Fred Scott, Melody of the Plains begins peacefully enough with Scott, as cowboy Steve Condon, warbling Don Swander and June Hershey's "Albuquerque." The story quickly takes a rather grim turn when one of Steve's colleagues, Bud (David Sharpe), is shot and killed after selling out to a gang of rustlers. Mistakenly believing he fired the deadly shot, a dejected Steve, along with sidekick Fuzzy (Al St. John), goes to work for Bud's father (Lafe McKee), a rancher nearly forced into bankruptcy by a crooked land developer (Hal Price).

A woman seeking revenge for her murdered father hires a famous gunman, but he's very different from what she expects.

A young Indian girl is adopted by a white couple who treat her almost as their daughter, educating her and showering on her every attention. She is happy and falls in love with the couple's nephew, but she finds the young man with his fiancée, a young lady of his own race. Back to her own people she goes, and her former lover attacks the boy in revenge. When the white boy's fiancée learns of his duplicity, she breaks her troth with him.

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.