Best Native American Movies
by mr-right_forever | created - 2 months ago | updated - 2 months ago | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
R | 112 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
Three trappers protect the daughters of a British Colonel in the midst of the French and Indian War.
Director: Michael Mann | Stars: Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe, Russell Means, Eric Schweig
Votes: 187,761 | Gross: $75.51M
2. A Man Called Horse (1970)
R | 114 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
In 1825, an English aristocrat is captured by Native Americans. He lives with them and begins to understand their way of life. Eventually, he is accepted as part of the tribe and aspires to become their leader.
Director: Elliot Silverstein | Stars: Richard Harris, Judith Anderson, Jean Gascon, Manu Tupou
Votes: 9,363 | Gross: $1.94M
3. Windwalker (1980)
PG | 108 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
In 1797 Utah, an aged Cheyenne patriarch helps his kin to fight off a raiding party of rival Crow warriors and he tells his grandchildren the story of their family.
Director: Kieth Merrill | Stars: Trevor Howard, Nick Ramus, James Remar, Serene Hedin
Votes: 1,226 | Gross: $18.64M
4. Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier (1955)
Approved | 93 min | Adventure, Drama, Family
American frontiersman Davy Crockett fights in the Creek Indian War, is elected to the U.S. Congress and fights for Texas at the Alamo.
Director: Norman Foster | Stars: Fess Parker, Buddy Ebsen, Basil Ruysdael, Hans Conried
Votes: 4,890
5. Ride Lonesome (1959)
Approved | 73 min | Western
A bounty hunter (Randolph Scott) escorts a killer (James Best) to be tried for murder, but allows the man's outlaw brother (Lee Van Cleef) to catch up with them to have a showdown over a previous shocking murder.
Director: Budd Boetticher | Stars: Randolph Scott, Karen Steele, Pernell Roberts, James Best
Votes: 6,607
6. Hombre (1967)
Approved | 111 min | Drama, Western
John Russell, disdained by his "respectable" fellow stagecoach passengers because he was raised by Native Americans, becomes their only hope for survival when they are set upon by outlaws.
Director: Martin Ritt | Stars: Paul Newman, Fredric March, Richard Boone, Diane Cilento
Votes: 13,847
7. The Scalphunters (1968)
Not Rated | 102 min | Comedy, Drama, Western
Forced to trade his valuable furs for a well-educated escaped slave, a rugged trapper vows to recover the pelts from the Indians and later the renegades that killed them.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Shelley Winters, Telly Savalas, Ossie Davis
Votes: 4,385
8. Cimarron (1960)
Approved | 147 min | Drama, Romance, Western
The Oklahoma Land Run of April 1889 sets the stage for an epic saga of a frontier adventurer, his wife and family and their friends.
Directors: Anthony Mann, Charles Walters | Stars: Glenn Ford, Maria Schell, Anne Baxter, Arthur O'Connell
Votes: 3,432
9. Bone Tomahawk (2015)
Not Rated | 132 min | Drama, Horror, Western
In the dying days of the old west, an elderly sheriff and his posse set out to rescue their town's doctor from cannibalistic cave dwellers.
Director: S. Craig Zahler | Stars: Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox, Richard Jenkins
Votes: 118,076
10. Breakheart Pass (1975)
PG | 95 min | Drama, Mystery, Western
John Deakin is being transported, as a prisoner, on a train with supplies and medicine to Fort Humboldt, Nevada.
Director: Tom Gries | Stars: Charles Bronson, Ben Johnson, Richard Crenna, Jill Ireland
Votes: 8,814
11. Broken Arrow (1950)
Approved | 93 min | Drama, Romance, Western
Tom Jeffords tries to make peace between settlers and Apaches in Arizona territory.
Director: Delmer Daves | Stars: James Stewart, Jeff Chandler, Debra Paget, Basil Ruysdael
Votes: 9,686
12. Chato's Land (1972)
PG | 100 min | Drama, Western
In 1870s New Mexico, a half-breed kills a bigoted sheriff in self-defense but the posse that eventually hunts him finds itself in dangerous territory.
Director: Michael Winner | Stars: Charles Bronson, Jack Palance, James Whitmore, Simon Oakland
Votes: 6,269 | Gross: $0.42M
13. Cheyenne Autumn (1964)
PG | 154 min | Drama, History, Western
The Cheyenne, tired of broken U.S. government promises, head for their ancestral lands but a sympathetic cavalry officer is tasked to bring them back to their reservation.
Director: John Ford | Stars: Richard Widmark, Carroll Baker, Karl Malden, Sal Mineo
Votes: 6,453
14. Clearcut (1991)
R | 100 min | Drama, Thriller, Western
A white lawyer finds his values shaken when he is paired with an angry Indigenous activist who insists on kidnapping the head of a logging company to teach him the price of his destruction.
Director: Ryszard Bugajski | Stars: Ron Lea, Graham Greene, Michael Hogan, Floyd 'Red Crow' Westerman
Votes: 1,371
15. Comanche Moon (2008)
TV-14 | 120 min | Drama, Western
The adventures and love lives of young Texas Rangers Woodrow Call and Augustus McCrae leading up to their retirement to the city of Lonesome Dove.
Stars: Steve Zahn, Ryan Merriman, Keith D. Robinson, Wes Studi
Votes: 3,290
16. The Comancheros (1961)
Approved | 107 min | Drama, Western
Texas Ranger Jake Cutter arrests gambler Paul Regret, but soon finds himself teamed with his prisoner in an undercover effort to defeat a band of renegade arms merchants and thieves dealing with the Comanches known as Comancheros.
Directors: Michael Curtiz, John Wayne | Stars: John Wayne, Stuart Whitman, Ina Balin, Nehemiah Persoff
Votes: 10,008
17. Dances with Wolves (1990)
PG-13 | 181 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
Lieutenant John Dunbar, assigned to a remote western Civil War outpost, finds himself engaging with a neighbouring Sioux settlement, causing him to question his own purpose.
Director: Kevin Costner | Stars: Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene, Rodney A. Grant
Votes: 290,791 | Gross: $184.21M
18. Flaming Star (1960)
Passed | 101 min | Drama, Western
When fighting breaks out between two cultures in West Texas, the mixed-blood Pacer tries to act as a peacemaker, but the "flaming star of death" pulls him irrevocably into the deadly violence.
Director: Don Siegel | Stars: Elvis Presley, Barbara Eden, Steve Forrest, Dolores Del Río
Votes: 4,076 | Gross: $1.96M
19. Fort Apache (1948)
Passed | 128 min | Drama, Western
At Fort Apache, an honorable and veteran war captain finds conflict when his regime is placed under the command of a young, glory hungry lieutenant colonel with no respect for the local Indian tribe.
Director: John Ford | Stars: John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Shirley Temple, Pedro Armendáriz
Votes: 19,700
20. Geronimo: An American Legend (1993)
PG-13 | 115 min | Drama, History, Western
The story of the Apache chief and his armed resistance to the U.S. Government's subjugation of his people.
Director: Walter Hill | Stars: Jason Patric, Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall, Wes Studi
Votes: 13,494 | Gross: $18.64M
21. Hostiles (2017)
R | 134 min | Drama, Western
In 1892, a legendary Army Captain reluctantly agrees to escort a Cheyenne chief and his family through dangerous territory.
Director: Scott Cooper | Stars: Scott Shepherd, Rosamund Pike, Ava Cooper, Stella Cooper
Votes: 95,748 | Gross: $29.82M
22. The Indian in the Cupboard (1995)
PG | 96 min | Drama, Family, Fantasy
Omri, a young boy growing up in Brooklyn, receives an odd variety of presents for his birthday: a wooden cupboard from his older brother, a set of antique keys from his mother, and a plastic Indian from his best friend, Patrick.
Director: Frank Oz | Stars: Hal Scardino, Litefoot, Lindsay Crouse, Richard Jenkins
Votes: 31,050 | Gross: $35.62M
23. Jeremiah Johnson (1972)
GP | 108 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
A mountain man who wishes to live the life of a hermit becomes the unwilling object of a long vendetta by the Crow tribe and proves to be a match for their warriors in single combat on the early frontier.
Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Robert Redford, Will Geer, Delle Bolton, Josh Albee
Votes: 35,005 | Gross: $47.74M
24. Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
R | 206 min | Crime, Drama, History
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.
Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons
Votes: 239,683
25. Last of the Dogmen (1995)
PG | 118 min | Adventure, Western
A Montana bounty hunter and an anthropologist discover a tribe of Native Americans living in a settlement isolated from the rest of the world.
Director: Tab Murphy | Stars: Tom Berenger, Barbara Hershey, Kurtwood Smith, Steve Reevis
Votes: 5,973 | Gross: $7.40M
26. Legends of the Fall (1994)
R | 133 min | Drama, Romance, War
In the early 1900s, three brothers and their father living in the remote wilderness of Montana are affected by betrayal, history, love, nature, and war.
Director: Edward Zwick | Stars: Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, Aidan Quinn, Julia Ormond
Votes: 183,183 | Gross: $66.64M
27. Little Big Man (1970)
PG-13 | 139 min | Adventure, Comedy, Drama
Jack Crabb, looking back from extreme old age, tells of his life being raised by Native Americans and fighting with General Custer.
Director: Arthur Penn | Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Faye Dunaway, Chief Dan George, Martin Balsam
Votes: 37,908 | Gross: $31.56M
28. The Lone Ranger (2013)
PG-13 | 150 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
Native American warrior Tonto recounts the untold tales that transformed John Reid, a man of the law, into a legend of justice.
Director: Gore Verbinski | Stars: Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, William Fichtner, Tom Wilkinson
Votes: 244,538 | Gross: $89.30M
29. The Missing (I) (2003)
R | 137 min | Adventure, Drama, Thriller
In 1885 New Mexico, a frontier medicine woman forms an uneasy alliance with her estranged father when her daughter is kidnapped by an Apache brujo.
Director: Ron Howard | Stars: Tommy Lee Jones, Cate Blanchett, Evan Rachel Wood, Jenna Boyd
Votes: 38,240 | Gross: $26.90M
30. The New World (2005)
PG-13 | 135 min | Biography, Drama, History
The story of the English exploration of Virginia, and of the changing world and loves of Pocahontas.
Director: Terrence Malick | Stars: Colin Farrell, Q'orianka Kilcher, Christopher Plummer, Christian Bale
Votes: 89,916 | Gross: $12.71M
31. On Deadly Ground (1994)
R | 101 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller
A blowout firefighter takes on an environmentally destructive oil corporation by causing many deaths and explosions in Alaska.
Director: Steven Seagal | Stars: Steven Seagal, Michael Caine, Joan Chen, John C. McGinley
Votes: 25,471 | Gross: $38.59M
32. One Little Indian (1973)
G | 90 min | Comedy, Family, Western
On the run from the Cavalry, a man tries to disappear while accompanied by two camels and a runaway boy. His escape is made harder when he meets a widow and her daughter who may turn him in.
Director: Bernard McEveety | Stars: James Garner, Vera Miles, Pat Hingle, Morgan Woodward
Votes: 723
33. The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
PG | 135 min | Drama, Western
Missouri farmer Josey Wales joins a Confederate guerrilla unit and winds up on the run from the Union soldiers who murdered his family.
Director: Clint Eastwood | Stars: Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Chief Dan George, Bill McKinney
Votes: 79,876 | Gross: $31.80M
34. The Revenant (I) (2015)
R | 156 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
A frontiersman on a fur trading expedition in the 1820s fights for survival after being mauled by a bear and left for dead by members of his own hunting team.
Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu | Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Will Poulter, Domhnall Gleeson
Votes: 874,722 | Gross: $183.64M
35. Rio Grande (1950)
Passed | 105 min | Drama, Romance, Western
A cavalry officer posted on the Rio Grande is confronted with murderous raiding Apaches, a son who's a risk-taking recruit and his wife from whom he has been separated for many years.
Director: John Ford | Stars: John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Ben Johnson, Claude Jarman Jr.
Votes: 17,677
36. Road to Paloma (2014)
R | 91 min | Drama, Thriller
Wolf, a Native American on the run after avenging his mother's murder, flees across the desolate American West on his motorcycle, where he'll discover that justice has a cost.
Director: Jason Momoa | Stars: Jason Momoa, Robert Homer Mollohan, Lisa Bonet, Sarah Shahi
Votes: 5,546
37. The Searchers (1956)
Passed | 119 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
An American Civil War veteran embarks on a years-long journey to rescue his niece from the Comanches after the rest of his brother's family is massacred in a raid on their Texas farm.
Director: John Ford | Stars: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Ward Bond
Votes: 96,338
38. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)
Passed | 104 min | Western
Captain Nathan Brittles, on the eve of retirement, takes out a last patrol to stop an impending massive Indian attack. Encumbered by women who must be evacuated, Brittles finds his mission imperiled.
Director: John Ford | Stars: John Wayne, Joanne Dru, John Agar, Ben Johnson
Votes: 19,330
39. Smoke Signals (1998)
PG-13 | 89 min | Comedy, Drama
Arnold rescued Thomas from a fire when he was a child. Thomas thinks of Arnold as a hero, while Arnold's son Victor resents his father's alcoholism, violence and abandonment of his family.
Director: Chris Eyre | Stars: Adam Beach, Evan Adams, Irene Bedard, Gary Farmer
Votes: 12,608 | Gross: $6.72M
40. Thunderheart (1992)
R | 119 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
A young mixed-blood FBI agent is assigned to work with a cynical veteran investigator on a murder on a poverty-stricken Sioux reservation.
Director: Michael Apted | Stars: Val Kilmer, Sam Shepard, Graham Greene, Fred Ward
Votes: 17,142 | Gross: $22.66M
41. The Unforgiven (1960)
Approved | 125 min | Drama, Romance, Western
The neighbors of a frontier family turn on them when it is suspected that their adopted daughter was stolen from the local Kiowa tribe.
Director: John Huston | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Audrey Hepburn, Audie Murphy, John Saxon
Votes: 9,739
42. Wild Indian (2021)
90 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Two men learn to confront a traumatic secret they share involving the savage murder of a schoolmate.
Director: Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr. | Stars: Michael Greyeyes, Chaske Spencer, Jesse Eisenberg, Kate Bosworth
Votes: 1,696
43. Wind River (2017)
R | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A wildlife officer, who is haunted by a tragedy that happened because of him, teams up with an FBI agent in solving a murder of a young woman on a Wyoming Native American reservation and hopes to get redemption from his past regrets.
Director: Taylor Sheridan | Stars: Elizabeth Olsen, Jeremy Renner, Graham Greene, Kelsey Asbille
Votes: 280,709 | Gross: $33.80M
44. Windtalkers (2002)
R | 134 min | Action, Drama, War
Two U.S. Marines in World War II are assigned to protect Navajo Marines, who use their native language as an unbreakable radio cypher.
Director: John Woo | Stars: Nicolas Cage, Adam Beach, Peter Stormare, Noah Emmerich
Votes: 73,666 | Gross: $40.91M
45. How the West Was Won (1962)
G | 164 min | Adventure, War, Western
A family saga covering several decades of Westward expansion in the 19th century, including the Gold Rush, the Civil War, and the building of the railroads.
Directors: John Ford, Henry Hathaway, George Marshall, Richard Thorpe | Stars: James Stewart, John Wayne, Gregory Peck, Henry Fonda
Votes: 23,340 | Gross: $46.50M
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