Best movies like Drums of the Desert

A big-scale outdoor melodrama-lavishly filmed to depict the mighty human drama of a dying race. 'Twill stir your blood to the quick if you like this kind of a show.

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Drums of the Desert Starring Warner Baxter, Marietta Millner, Ford Sterling, Wallace MacDonald, and more. If you liked Drums of the Desert then you may also like: Ulzana's Raid, The Vanishing American, Wagon Master, Walk the Proud Land, War Paint 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.

John Curry is a friend of the Navajos who fails in his attempts to keep the white man from exploiting the tribe's secret altars. Realizing that there is oil to be found on the reservation, evil Will Newton gains entry to the area by posing as a trail guide for Elias Manton, an archeologist, and his daughter Mary.

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Ulzana's Raid

Report reaches the US cavalry that the Apache leader Ulzana has left his reservation with a band of followers. A compassionate young officer, Lieutenant DeBuin, is given a small company to find him and bring him back; accompanying the troop is McIntosh, an experienced scout, and Ke-Ni-Tay, an Apache guide. Ulzana massacres, rapes and loots across the countryside; and as DeBuin encounters the remains of his victims, he is compelled to learn from McIntosh and to confront his own naivity and hidden prejudices.

Wagon Master

Two young drifters guide a Mormon wagon train to the San Juan Valley and encounter cutthroats, Navajo, geography, and moral challenges on the journey.

Walk the Proud Land

Indian Agent sent to try new approach to peace with Apaches based on respect for automomy rather than submission to Army. Wins over reservation chiefs and the Indian widow (Bancroft) given to him as housekeeper. Through use of diplomacy and demonstrations of faith in Apache leaders, reservation is put on the road to automomy. Conflicts arise between Apache widow and Eastern wife but latter has a lot to learn.

War Paint

An Indian chief of the Arapahoe escapes the reservation where he has been living and takes along some of his warriors. The cavalry is sent out for them.

Navajo

A young Navajo Indian boy is caught up in the conflict of cultures when he rejects the white man's school. Told in semi-documentary style.

On Deadly Ground

Forrest Taft is an environmental agent who works for the Aegis Oil Company in Alaska. Aegis Oil's corrupt CEO is the kind of person who doesn't care whether or not oil spills into the ocean or onto the land—just as long as it's making money for him.

Redskin

Wing Foot (Richard Dix), is a Navaho educated in an otherwise all-white school. In the course of the story he experiences prejudice from both the whites (because of his race) and the Navahos (who disown him because of his upbringing). Thus, Wing Foot is looked upon as neither Indian nor white, but simply a "redskin."

Killers of the Flower Moon

When oil is discovered in 1920s Oklahoma under Osage Nation land, the Osage people are murdered one by one—until the FBI steps in to unravel the mystery.

King Solomon's Mines

White hunter Allan Quartermain and his enigmatic guide help a young Irish woman locate her missing father in unexplored Darkest Africa.

Ace in the Hole

An arrogant reporter exploits a story about a man trapped in a cave to revitalize his career.

The Barbarian

An Arab prince masquerades as a tour guide for rich women in order to enrich himself.

Billy Jack

Ex-Green Beret hapkido expert saves wild horses from being slaughtered for dog food and helps protect a desert "freedom school" for runaways.

Broken Arrow

Indian scout Tom Jeffords is sent out to stem the war between the Whites and Apaches in the late 1870s. He learns that the Indians kill only to protect themselves, or out of retaliation for white atrocities.

Buffalo Dreams

Josh Townsend finds himself living in New Mexico after his father's new job requires the family to move from their home in Utah. While acclimating to his new surroundings, Josh becomes involved with a group of teens attempting to preserve the buffalo and Navajo traditions. Along the way he makes friends and learns important lessons about life in this Disney Channel Original movie.

Dances with Wolves

Wounded Civil War soldier, John Dunbar tries to commit suicide—and becomes a hero instead. As a reward, he's assigned to his dream post, a remote junction on the Western frontier, and soon makes unlikely friends with the local Sioux tribe.

Moby Dick

In 1841, young Ishmael signs up for service abroad the Pequod, a whaler sailing out of New Bedford. The ship is under the command of Captain Ahab, a strict disciplinarian who exhorts his men to find Moby Dick, the great white whale. Ahab lost his his leg to that creature and is desperate for revenge. As the crew soon learns, he will stop at nothing to gain satisfaction.

Duel at Diablo

While crossing the desert, a frontier scout, Jess Remsberg, rescues Ellen Grange from a pursuing band of Apaches, and returns her to her husband, Willard Grange. He is contracted to act as a scout for an Army cavalry unit. Willard, Ellen, and her infant son are along for the ride, as is horse trader Toller, a veteran of the 10th Cavalry. The party is trapped in a canyon by Chata, an Apache chief and grandfather of Ellen's baby. Willard is captured and tortured. Jess sneaks away and brings reinforcements just in time to save the day. Jess learns that the man he has been hunting is none other than Willard Grange.

The Indian Fighter

A scout leading a wagon train through hostile Indian country gets involved with a Sioux chief's daughter.

The Last Frontier

Three trappers become scouts for a cavalry captain who loses his fort to a hated colonel.

Stay Away, Joe

Joe Lightcloud persuades his Congressman to give him 20 heifers and a prize bull so he and his father, Charlie, can prove that the Navajos can successfully raise cattle on the reservation. If their experiment is successful, then the government will help all the Navajo people. But Joe's friend, Bronc Hoverty, accidentally barbecues the prize bull, while Joe sells the heifers to buy plumbing and other home improvements for his stepmother.

47 Meters Down: Uncaged

Four teenage girls go on a diving adventure to explore a submerged Mayan city. Once inside, their rush of excitement turns into a jolt of terror as they discover the sunken ruins are a hunting ground for deadly great white sharks. With their air supply steadily dwindling, the friends must navigate the underwater labyrinth of claustrophobic caves and eerie tunnels in search of a way out of their watery hell.

The Half-Breed

An Apache of mixed blood tries to make peace between Indians and whites.

The Stalking Moon

While moving a group of Apaches to a Native American reservation in Arizona, an American scout named Sam Varner is surprised to find a white woman, Sarah Carver, living with the tribe. When Sam learns that she was taken captive by an Indian named Salvaje ten years ago, he attempts to escort Sarah and her half-Native American son to his home in New Mexico. However, it soon becomes clear that Salvaje is hot on their trail.

Tomahawk Trail

Led by an incompetent Lieutenant, a troop of soldiers is on the Tomahawk Trail in Apache territory. When he lets the Indians steal their horses and gets slightly wounded in a skirmish, Sergeant McCoy takes over command. McCoy sucessfully gets them to the fort only to find all the soldiers have meen murdered by the Apaches. He prepares the troops for an attack knowing if they survive the Lieutenant plans to have him court marshaled.

Man with the Steel Whip

Saloon owner Barnet wants the Indian reservation land on which he knows there is gold, and organizes a gang, aided by some renegade Indians, to raid and terrorize close-by settlers,hoping to arouse them to drive off the Indians. Rancher Jerry Randall, accompanied by school teacher Nancy Cooper, sets out to defeat the plot. In order to win the loyalty of the innocent tribe members, Randall masquerades as a legendary friend of the Indians, El Latigo.

White Feather

The story of the peace mission from the US cavalry to the Cheyenne Indians in Wyoming during the 1870s. The mission is threatened when a civilian surveyor befriends the chief's son and falls for the chief's daughter.

The White Squaw

A Swedish settler (David Brian) starts a war when he tries to drive Dakotas off their Wyoming reservation.

The Last Round-up

A rancher tries to convince an Indian tribe to relocate so their land can be used to provide water for Kansas City.

Desert Kickboxer

A kickboxing cop abandons the violent life after he accidentally kills his opponent during a match. After quitting, he heads for the Arizona desert to live alone and occasionally work tracking drug runners for the area sheriff. One particularly wily Mexican drug lord, Santos, has been a real thorn in tracker Joe Highhawk's side, so when he encounters the beautiful Claudia and her simpleton brother Anthony running for their lives because she, an accountant, embezzled $20 million from Santos, he decides to help them. This actioner follows what happens next. Along the way, they encounter all sorts of danger, and double cross until the exciting final standoff between the kickboxer and the villain.

The Dark Wind

An Indian police officer is mixed up in murder and drug smuggling on the reservation.

The Legend of Walks Far Woman

Walks Far Woman is a an Indigenous woman of the Blackfoot tribe. She takes revenge on two men who killed her husband and then she is ostracized by her tribe. She then is adopted by the Sioux, the tribe of her mother, and there she tries to start a new life.

Kentucky Rifle

A man escorts a wagon load of Kentucky rifles through Indian territory and must find a way to get through without losing the rifles to the Indians. Unfortunately the Indians know about it, and give the occupants an ultimatum: either the rifles or their lives.

Shadowhunter

An L.A. cop tracks down a seemingly mystic murderer on an Indian reservation.

Here We Go Again

It's Fibber and Molly's 20th anniversary and they want to throw a big party. But when everyone declines their invitation, they decide to go on a second honeymoon instead. After one night at the broken down Ramble Inn, where they spent their first honeymoon, they decide to go across the lake to a swanky (and expensive) lodge, where they bump into their old friends Edgar Bergan, Charlie McCarthy, Gildersleeve, and Mrs. Uppington, so the party is on again.

They Rode West

Dr. Allen Seward is assigned to a western cavalry post where his predecessors had been drunks and slackers. The post doesn't take kindly to him either, especially after he disregards regulations and tends to sick Indians on the malaria-infested reservation. The Indians break away from the reservation to move to a healthier higher ground, and when they join with the Comanches to besiege the fort, Seward is branded as a "woodhawk", the bird that turns against its own. Donna Reed is present as the niece of the post commander; Phil Carey is a cavalry captain that believes the only good Indian is a dead Indian, and May Wynn is the white girl raised by the Indians and married to the chief's son.

Trail Riders

In the 18th entry of Monogram's 24 "Range Buster" films, the bank of Gila Springs is robbed by Ace Alton and his gang, and Sheriff Frank Hammond, son of Marshal Jim Hammond, is killed. The Marshal sends for the Range Busters, Dusty King, Davy Sharpe and Alibi Terhune, to come and restore order to the town. Ed Cole, head of the local vigilantes, and secretly the head of the outlaws, promptly orders the trio out of town. They visit an old friend, Rancher Mike Rand and his daughter Mary. Mary's brother Jeff has unwittingly become a gang member, and carries out Cole's orders by taking a shot at Davy, but the latter makes him a prisoner during a subsequent fight in the town café. Jeff confesses to Cole's involvement, and the Range Busters, with the help of town banker Harrison, set a trap for Cole and his outlaw vigilantes.

Another Dawn

Colonel John Wister, on duty with the British army in the desert region of Dubik, returns to England on leave. There he falls in love with Julia Ashton, who cares deeply for him but believes herself incapable of love following the death of her fiancé; some time before. Wister convinces her that he loves her enough to live without her romantic love and that she should marry him. She does so and returns to Dubik with him. There she meets his adjutant, Captain Denny Roark. Roark is a dashing young man who reminds Julia thoroughly of her lost love. Soon she finds she is indeed capable of love, but it is Roark with whom she falls in love, not her husband. As warfare with the local tribes heats up and as Wister gains awareness of the unconsummated romance growing between his wife and best friend, tragedy lurks.

Along the Navajo Trail

U.S. Deputy Marshal Roy investigates the disappearance of a government agent who has come to Dale's father's Ladder A Ranch. The bad guys want the land the ranch sits on because they know an oil pipeline is planned through this location.

Apache Rifles

A young cavalry officer is assigned the job of bringing in a band of Apaches who have been terrorizing the countryside.

Taza, Son of Cochise

Three years after the end of the Apache wars, peacemaking chief Cochise dies. His elder son Taza shares his ideas, but brother Naiche yearns for war...and for Taza's betrothed, Oona. Naiche loses no time in starting trouble which, thanks to a bigoted cavalry officer, ends with the proud Chiricahua Apaches on a reservation, where they are soon joined by the captured renegade Geronimo, who is all it takes to light the firecracker's fuse...

Southwest Passage

Director Ray Nazarro's 1954 western, originally filmed in 3-D, stars John Ireland and Joanne Dru as fugitive bank robbers who hide out by joining a government expedition bound for California.

Wild Horse Mesa

Desperate for money, a rancher decides to trap and sell wild horses, using barbed wire. The local Navajo tribe tries to persuade him not to do it.

Daughter of the West

A convent-raised woman (Martha Vickers) learns of her American Indian heritage through romance with an educated Navajo (Philip Reed) during the 1880s.

Battling with Buffalo Bill

A western adventure serial in 12 episodes. Buffalo Bill battles gambler Jim Rodney who is trying to scare off the townspeople so he can gain possession of a gold strike discovered in the area. A nearby Indian tribe is provoked to attack the town and the cavalry is called in.

The Navajo Trail

U.S. Marshals Nevada Jack McKenzie and Sandy Hopkins are working undercover to capture a gang stealing horses from the Navajos, and to capture the killer of a Ranger. Nevada poses as an outlaw to get in with the gang and find the leader, while Sandy pretends to be a drunken old horse thief that has knowledge of where the Navajos have hidden their ponies.

The Huntress

Bela, reared by Indians, learns that she is a white orphan and runs away from the Indian village to avoid marrying a brave from the tribe. She determines to marry land prospector Sam Gladding, who resists her advances but later falls in love with Bela when an Indian sage gives him some advice.

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