Best movies like California

Mighty drama of men who were titans...and a woman who was their match!

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like California Starring Ray Milland, Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Fitzgerald, George Coulouris, and more. If you liked California then you may also like: Utah Wagon Train, The Naked Hills, Nevada, North to Alaska, The Oregon Trail and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

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"Wicked" Lily Bishop joins a wagon train to California, led by Michael Fabian and Johnny Trumbo, but news of the Gold Rush scatters the train. When Johnny and Michael finally arrive, Lily is rich from her saloon and storekeeper (former slaver) Pharaoh Coffin is bleeding the miners dry. But worse troubles are ahead: California is inching toward statehood, and certain people want to make it their private empire.

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Know any good movies to watch like California 1947. With a similar plot or stoyline. Suggest it.

Utah Wagon Train

Rancher Rex Allen receives a summons from his uncle. an old time frontiersman, that he is in trouble. The uncle has been hired to lead a modern-day band of adventurers on a wagon train retracing the route taken by their ancestors 100 years ago. Before Rex can talk to his uncle, the uncle is murdered, and Rex sets out to find the killer and the motive by taking his uncle's place as the leader of the wagon train.

The Naked Hills

Tracy Powell, an Indiana farmer, gets the gold fever and heads for Stockton, California in 1849. There, he abandons his first partner, Bert Killian, and teams up with Sam Wilkins, a claim jumper employed by Willis Haver. Six years later, Powell returns to Indiana and his sweetheart, Julie. They marry and he tries farming again but, on the night their son is born, he takes off again searching for gold. This time he heads for the hills with an inveterate prospector, Jimmo McCann. A decade later, the two are still hunting for their big strike when McCann is killed in an accident. Powell returns home with news of a big strike but the deserted Julie will have nothing to do with him. His friend Killian will not believe him but Haver, now a banker gives him a small loan and then beats him out of his claim. Many years pass before he comes home, now sixty-years-old, and this time, his wife and son open their home to him. But he vows to go prospecting come next spring.

Nevada

Just as Nevada wins $7000 in yellowback bills, Ben Ide takes his $7000 and heads out to buy mining equipment. Burridge has his man Powell kill Ide and retrieve the money and Nevada finds Ide just as the posse arrives. Found with the money Nevada is arrested and Burridge now gets Powell to incite the local citizens to lynch Nevada.

North to Alaska

Sam and George strike gold in Alaska. George sends Sam to Seattle to bring George's fiancé back to Alaska. Sam finds she is already married, and returns instead with Angel. Sam, after trying to get George and Angel together, finally romances Angel, who, in the meantime, is busy fighting off the advances of George's younger brother, Billy.

The Oregon Trail

In 1846, a reporter for the New York Herald joins a wagon train bound for the Oregon Territory. He hopes to confirm a rumor that President Polk is sending in soldiers disguised as settlers in order to strengthen American claims to the Territory.

The Raiders

A rancher who has staked a claim during the California gold rush goes after the gang of murderous claim-jumpers who have stolen his claim and murdered his wife.

Klondike Fever

This movie chronicles Jack London's epic journey from San Francisco to the Klondike gold fields in 1898.

The Aryan

Steve Denton, rich from years of prospecting, is fleeced by the citizens of Yellow Ridge. In his rage, he kidnaps the woman most responsible and makes her his slave in a desert hideaway.

Bend of the River

Two men with questionable pasts, Glyn McLyntock and his friend Cole, lead a wagon-train load of homesteaders from Missouri to the Oregon territory...

Garden of Evil

A trio of American adventurers marooned in rural Mexico are recruited by a beautiful woman to rescue her husband from Apaches.

Gold Diggers of '49

Porky and Beans are prospectors during the Gold Rush, but when a villain steals Porky's bag of loot Beans races to get it back so he can marry Porky's daughter Little Kitty.

The Gold Rush

A gold prospector in Alaska struggles to survive the elements and win the heart of a dance hall girl.

Gold Rush Daze

A hound dog drives to the hills to dig for gold. However, a gas station hound explains that, in 1849, there was a major gold rush in the hills at the first sight of gold, and he didn't have any success digging, mining, or panning any gold. When a horseman reports a sign of gold, the station hound trades his gas station for the other hound's car and equipment.

Paint Your Wagon

A Michigan farmer and a prospector form a partnership in the California gold country. Their adventures include buying and sharing a wife, hijacking a stage, kidnapping six prostitutes, and turning their mining camp into a boom town. Along the way there is plenty of drinking, gambling, and singing. They even find time to do some creative gold mining.

The Spoilers

When honest ship captain Roy Glennister gets swindled out of his mine claim, he turns to saloon singer Cherry Malotte for assistance in his battle with no-good town kingpin Alexander McNamara.

The Spoilers

In 1899 Alaska, miners have to protect themselves from a phony legal team trying to steal their gold claims.

Thunder Trail

A wagon train is robbed by a gang of bandits who kill everyone but a pair of young brothers. Years later, the brothers join force to bring the bandits' leader to justice.

The Trail of '98

Fortune hunters from all over the country rushing to the Klondike in 1897 to seek their fortunes in the gold are tested by hardships of the journey.

Gold Rush Maisie

Maisie becomes attached to a dirt-poor farmer and his family as they try to make ends meet joining hundreds of others digging for gold in a previously panned-out ghost town.

Fort Osage

Rod Cameron stars as frontier scout Tim Clay, assigned to guide a wagon train through Indian territory. Clay knows that he's in for a lot of trouble because of the treaty-violating activities of white criminals Pickett and Keane. Fortunately for the hero, Pickett and Keane double-cross each other somewhere along the line, weakening their ability to foment an all-out Indian attack.

Gold Fever

Magician-turned-actor John Calvert, previously the suave leading man of Film Classics' "Falcon" series, is a curious choice to star in the rough-and-tumble western Gold Fever. John Bonar (Calvert) and grizzled old prospector Nugget Jack (Ralph Morgan) strike it rich, whereupon they are besieged by Bill Johnson's (Gene Roth) outlaw gang. Heavily outnumbered, our heroes are forced to rely on brain rather than brawn.

The Great Man's Lady

In Hoyt City, a statue of founder Ethan Hoyt is dedicated, and 100 year old Hannah Sempler Hoyt (who lives in the last residence among skyscrapers) is at last persuaded to tell her story to a 'girl biographer'. Flashback: in 1848, teenage Hannah meets and flirts with pioneer Ethan; on a sudden impulse, they elope. We follow their struggle to found a city in the wilderness, hampered by the Gold Rush, star-crossed love, peril, and heartbreak. The star "ages" 80 years.

North of Hudson Bay

On a steamboat heading North, where his brother has struck gold, Mike Dane falls in love with Estelle MacDonald. When he arrives at the Canadian trading post, Dane learns that his brother has been murdered and his partner sentenced to death as the killer.

Shoot-Out At Medicine Bend

In Medicine Bend, a crooked businessman has the town mayor and sheriff in his pocket while his henchmen raid the wagon trains passing through the region.

The Flaming Forties

A young cowhand befriends a disreputable gambler and pulls him out of some trouble. Hoping to square things with his new friend, the gambler seeks to warn him about the cowhand's fiancée, about whom the gambler knows some unsavory details.

Burning Daylight

Elam "Burning Daylight" Harnish is a prospector who makes a million dollars in the Dawson, Alaska gold rush and loses the million dollars in Dawson. He journeys to San Francisco, makes three million dollars and loses it in San Francisco. He returns to Alaska and eventually finds his treasure.

The Flame of the Yukon

George Fowler, a young man from the states, arrives at the Mias saloon, and the proprietor, "Blak Jack" Hovey, orders a saloon girl, known only as "The Flame," to fleece him. When she learns he doesn't have any money she gets him a job at a café. News of a gold strike in the Ophir area comes, and George sets out, with a dog team supplied by Flame. Meanwhile a woman comes to town, says she is Mrs. Fowler and is looking for her husband.

A Romance of the Redwoods

A young girl travels west to live with her uncle during the California Gold Rush only to find that he has been killed by Indians and his identity assumed by an outlaw.

Girl Rush

During the California Gold Rush, two down-on-their-luck vaudevillians attempt to become wealthy by bringing a girlie show to an all-male western mining town.

Eureka Stockade

Spectacular account of the infamous Eureka Stockade, and the events leading up to it.

Can't Help Singing

With the California Gold Rush beginning, Senator Frost's singing daughter Caroline loves a young army officer; the Senator can't stand him, and has him sent to California. Headstrong Caroline follows him by train, riverboat, and covered wagon, gaining companions en route: a vagrant Russian prince and gambler Johnny Lawlor, who just might take her mind off the army.

The Oregon Trail

Jeff Scott is sent to investigate problems with wagon trains attempting to make the journey to Oregon. Sam Morgan has sent his henchmen, under lead-henchman Bull Bragg, to stop the wagon trains in order to maintain control of the fur trade in the area.

Fighting With Kit Carson

In this Western, comprised of 12 chapters from a serial, Kit leads a group carrying a large gold shipment across the wild West. When the Mystery Riders attack and steal the gold, Kit is the only survivor. He later joins forces with the cavalry to retrieve it.

California Gold Rush

Author Bret Harte relates the story of the discovery of gold in California at Sutter's Mill, and how that discovery changed the history of the west forever.

The Splendid Road

Young Sandra De Hault arrives by ship in Sacramento, California, during the 1849 Gold Rush. While on board she adopted three children whose mother had died during the voyage. While in Sacramento she is saved from the attentions of a violent drunk by Stanton Holliday, an agent for eastern banker John Grey. They fall for each other, but Sandra believes that the daughter of Halliday's boss is in love with him, and not wanting to hurt his career she leaves town.

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