Best Action Movies of 1972

When his cattlemen abandon him for the gold fields, rancher Wil Andersen is forced to take on a collection of young boys as his cowboys in order to get his herd to market in time to avoid financial disaster. The boys learn to do a man's job under Andersen's tutelage; however, neither Andersen nor the boys know that a gang of cattle thieves is stalking them.

When their ocean liner capsizes, a group of passengers struggle to survive and escape.

Arthur Bishop is a veteran hit man who, owing to his penchant for making his targets' deaths seem like accidents, thinks himself an artist. It's made him very rich, but as he hits middle age, he's so depressed and lonely that he takes on one of his victim's sons, Steve McKenna, as his apprentice. Arthur puts him through a rigorous training period and brings him on several hits. As Steven improves, Arthur worries that he'll discover who killed his father.

In a futuristic world that has embraced ape slavery, Caesar—the son of the late simians Cornelius and Zira—surfaces after almost twenty years of hiding out from the authorities, and prepares for a slave revolt against humanity.

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.

In a daring robbery, some $300,000 is taken from the Italian mob. Several mafiosi are killed, as are two policemen. Lt. Pope and Capt. Mattelli are two New York City cops trying to break the case. Three small-time criminals are on the run with the money. Will the mafia catch them first, or will the police?

An idealistic rookie cop joins the LAPD to make ends meet while finishing law school, and is indoctrinated by a seasoned veteran. As time goes on, he loses his ambitions and family as police work becomes his entire life.

Outlaw and self-appointed lawmaker, Judge Roy Bean, rules over an empty stretch of the West that gradually grows, under his iron fist, into a thriving town, while dispensing his his own quirky brand of frontier justice upon strangers passing by.

In the sixteenth century, Miguel de Cervantes, poet, playwright, and part-time actor, has been arrested, together with his manservant, by the Spanish Inquisition. They are accused of presenting an entertainment offensive to the Inquisition. Inside the huge dungeon into which they have been cast, the other prisoners gang up on Cervantes and his manservant, and begin a mock trial, with the intention of stealing or burning his possessions. Cervantes wishes to desperately save a manuscript he carries with him and stages, with costumes, makeup, and the participation of the other prisoners, an unusual defense--the story of Don Quixote.