Flere år etter borgerkrigen blir en dusørjeger og fangen hans stoppet av en snøstorm i Wyoming og må søke ly på en mellomstasjon med seks tvilsomme fremmede.
Vignettes weaving together the stories of six individuals in the old West at the end of the Civil War. Following the tales of a sharp-shooting songster, a wannabe bank robber, two weary traveling performers, a lone gold prospector, a woman traveling the West to an uncertain future, and a motley crew of strangers undertaking a carriage ride.
A small-town sheriff in the American West enlists the help of a disabled man, a drunk, and a young gunfighter in his efforts to hold in jail the brother of the local bad guy.
Questions arise when Senator Stoddard (James Stewart) attends the funeral of a local man named Tom Doniphon (John Wayne) in a small Western town. Flashing back, we learn Doniphon saved Stoddard, then a lawyer, when he was roughed up by a crew of outlaws terrorizing the town, led by Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). As the territory's safety hung in the balance, Doniphon and Stoddard, two of the only people standing up to him, proved to be very important, but different, foes to Valance.
Dan Evans, a small time farmer, is hired to escort Ben Wade, a dangerous outlaw, to Yuma. As Evans and Wade wait for the 3:10 train to Yuma, Wade's gang is racing to free him.
After her stagecoach is ambushed, a woman is tasked with holding a dangerous outlaw captive and must survive the day when the bandit’s gang tries to free him.
John Russell, disdained by his "respectable" fellow stagecoach passengers because he was raised by Indians, becomes their only hope for survival when they are set upon by outlaws.
A group of people traveling on a stagecoach find their journey complicated by the threat of Geronimo, and learn something about each other in the process.
A group of unlikely travelling companions find themselves on the same stagecoach to Cheyenne. They include a drunken doctor, a bar girl who's been thrown out of town, a professional gambler, a travelling liquor salesman, a banker who has decided to embezzle money, a gun-slinger out for revenge and a young woman going to join her army captain husband. All have secrets but when they are set upon by an Indian war party and then a family of outlaws, they find they must all work together if they are to stay alive.
When Rocklin arrives in a western town he finds that the rancher who hired him as a foreman has been murdered. He is out to solve the murder and thwart the scheming to take the ranch from its rightful owner.
A scruffy garbage boy becomes the pupil of famed gunfighter Talby, and the stage for confrontation is set when the gunman overruns the boy's town through violence and corruption.
Stodge City is in the grip of the Rumpo Kid and his gang. Mistaken identity again takes a hand as a 'sanitary engineer' named Marshal P. Knutt is mistaken for a law marshal. Being the conscientious sort, Marshal tries to help the town get rid of Rumpo, and a showdown is inevitable. Marshal has two aids—revenge-seeking Annie Oakley and his sanitary expertise.
Two brothers, Monty and Ted, will inherit $300,000 if they manage to live together for six months.
At a desolate relay station in the west, a stagecoach attendant and a stranded woman traveller are held captive by a band of escaped convicts.
Double-crossed and left without water in the desert, Cable Hogue is saved when he finds a spring. It is in just the right spot for a much needed rest stop on the local stagecoach line, and Hogue uses this to his advantage. He builds a house and makes money off the stagecoach passengers. Hildy, a prostitute from the nearest town, moves in with him. Hogue has everything going his way until the advent of the automobile ends the era of the stagecoach.
A peace-loving man named Ben Kane takes a job as deputy marshal of Lords, in the old West. Kane is no lawman, but he accepts the badge because he has an old score to settle with the town's chief trouble-maker. Once on the job, Kane must also deal with a young sharpshooter named Billy Young and a sharp and sassy saloon dancer, Lily.
Union officer Kerry Bradford escapes from a Confederate prison and races to intercept $5 million in gold destined for Confederate coffers. A Confederate sympathizer and a Mexican bandit, each with their own stake in the loot, stand in his way.
Raton Pass is a curious western based on the rules of Community Property. Dennis Morgan and Patricia Neal portray a recently married husband and wife, each of whom owns half of a huge cattle ranch. Neal is a tad more ambitious than her husband, and with the help of a little legal chicanery she tries to obtain Morgan's half of the spread. He balks, so she hires a few gunslingers to press the issue. In a 1951 western, the greedy party usually came to a sorry end; Raton Pass adheres strictly to tradition.
An independent former ranch foreman and an heiress are kidnapped by a trio of ruthless outlaws.
It's 1876 and all the Indians are at peace except the Comanches lead by Black Cloud. When Black Cloud wipes out a town, only six soldiers are left and they head for the nearest fort. In the desert they are reinforced by members of a stagecoach and find some water at a deserted mission. Pinned down by Black Cloud they send an Indian boy who was Black Cloud's prisoner on to the fort while they try to bargain with Black Cloud whom they learn is without water.