20 best movies like Riders of the Rio Grande (1929)

In an attempt to drive out settlers of the Los Trancos valley, through which the railroad proposes to run a line, railroad representative Clyde Barton conspires with Dirk to cause a range war between the two largest ranchers, Tom Gray and Harvey Allen.

Jimmy Dixon, pursued by a band of Mexicans, changes clothes with a tramp, who takes off on his horse. Four miles later, Jimmy walks onto the Double-O Ranch, from which he had been thrown off four years before by his dad, who had blamed Jimmy for something that his twin brother Duke had done. Duke, home from college, took over the ranch when Mr. Dixon became ill, and has run it into the ground. When Duke goes to the bank to repay a debt to Jimmy, he rides onto Phoenix with all of the ranch money.

Dyer is buying ranches and then retrieving his check by having his gang kill the owner. Bob Worth arrives just as Buck Morton is killed and gets blamed for the murder. Fleeing from the Sheriff, Bob teams up with the Mexican outlaw Golinda. Having seen Dyer pay off his men, he has a plan to trap him and Golinda is just the man he needs to make it work.

Four former harlots try to leave the wild west (Colorado, to be exact) and head north to make a better life for themselves. Unfortunately someone from Cody's past won't let it happen that easily.

Three men, each on their individual quest, meet at a deserted cabin and take the assumed names of Ace, King, and Jack.

Just after Kramer goes to Wyoming to start his protection racket, cowboy actor Jeff Carson finishes a picture and goes camping. Attracted to Joyce Butler, he hires on at her ranch and quickly gets caught up in Butler's conflict with Kramer. When the Butlers refuse to buy his service, he has their cattle stampeded.

A cowboy recently released from prison is determined to go straight, but he winds up in a tough western town where he finds trouble everywhere.

A cowboy is accused of his father's murder.

Cowboy is hired by an archaeologist to help find "Hidden Valley", where an Indian gold treasure is supposed to be buried. Just when he finds it, the archaeologist is killed, and the cowboy his charged with his murder.

John Clark (Bob Steele) and his deaf pal, Bootch Collum (Buck Connors), are trailed by U. S. Marshal Lamar Bly (Jack Rockwell)...

Adam Larey becomes a fugitive from justice when he escapes after being blamed for a crime he did not commit. He wanders into the desert wastelands and joins an outlaw gang who prey on gold prospectors. Years later, he meets his wife and her gold-prospecting father as they have come there seeking their fortune, and not knowing the danger of the treacherous desert wastes, the poisoned-water holes and the outlaw bands of marauders who roam the desert in search of the gold found by others. He comes to their aid and, eventually, manges to clear his name of the false charge against him.

A masked hero called "The Eagle" leads California ranchers in a struggle against Russian Cossacks who are plotting to take over California and turn it into a Russian colony.

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

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 cowboy (Hoot Gibson) rides by night to catch the man who killed his brother.

Chip of the Flying U was Johnny Mack Brown's first western entry for 1940. Brown essays the title role of Chip Bennett, foreman of the Flying U ranch. Before the second reel has tumbled over the spools, Chip finds himself falsely accused of robbery and murder. The actual miscreants are in the employ of a band of foreign gunrunners, who speak in heavily Teutonic accents. Rest assured that Chip makes short work of these bush-league Storm Troopers before the sun sets in the West. Musical interludes are provided by a group calling themselves the Texas Rangers, even though they actually hailed from Kansas City.

Gen. Ulysses S. Grant has a job for Wild Bill Hickok (George Houston) and his sidekick (Al St. John).

An Irish convict sentenced to hard labor in Australia escapes into the outback, and organizes a band of fellow escapees to fight a corrupt landlord.

1933. A city boy arrives in his late mother's birthplace to discover the locals have been pestered by drought, old fights and a cougar. He turns out to be pivotal in all of these.

A cowboy realizes too late that his girlfriend's father had been cheated out of everything in a crooked card game. He sets out to get revenge on the crooks.

When a fellow ranger (Julian Madison) is brutally murdered, the Captain sends Dave Austin to investigate the crime, only to stumble upon a money-laundering scheme in the works. With one eye on the killer (Ted Adams), Austin tries to unravel the racket. But keeping his true identity under wraps could be a problem. Rex Lease and Marion Weldon co-star in this classic Western from prolific director Sam Newfield.

Dan Ward, reformed and last member of an outlaw family, meets Molly Clark in a rocky draw near town. Ted Wells, a henchman for Dan's enemy Jim Swain, attempts to shoot Dan but is outdrawn and killed by the latter. Molly disappears and Dan learns that she and Wells had ridden there together. Sheriff Bob Larimer tells Dan that Molly is in love with Bert Gilmore and tried to have him ambushed. Dan takes a risky job with mine owner Pember of getting the $10,000 payroll through to the mine. Swain suspects that Dan is carrying the payroll, but his gang is unable to stop Dan. Betty Pember disregards Dan's warning that the hills are filled with Swain's men and she starts for town. She is kidnapped by Gilmore and Molly and Dan ride to her rescue.

Charles Starrett stars in the lightning-paced Columbia western Riding West. Somebody is planning to sabotage the new Pony Express mail service, and hard-ridin' Steve Jordan (Charles Starrett) aims to find out who.

his was one of the earlier uses of Robert Tansey's favorite plot (only the 3rd time he had trotted it out of the stable, but he got six more films out of it in later years) in which a group of outlaws (wrongly jailed this time) are let out to join up with the good guys against a worse bunch of outlaws. And, not unusual in the B-western genre, most of the production crew wore several hats; director Robert N. Bradbury and supervisor Lindsley Parsons wrote a song for Tommy Bupp, one of the actually good kid actors of the time who proved real quick-like that singing wasn't his strong suit, while Robert Emmett Tansey worked three jobs under three names... Robert Emmett on story and screenplay, Robert Tansey as the production manager and Al Lane as the assistant director. And, for a change, music director Frank Sanucci actually earned a composers' credit as he did write a song... Written by Les Adams

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.