Ulzana's Raid - Classic western with Burt Lancaster

Ulzana's Raid is a 1972 American revisionist Western film starring Burt Lancaster, Richard Jaeckel, Bruce Davison, and Joaquin Martinez.

Following mistreatment by Indian agency authorities, Ulzana breaks out of the San Carlos Indian Reservation with a small Chiricahua war party. When news reaches Fort Lowell, the commanding officer sends riders out to alert the local settlers, but both troopers are ambushed separately; one is dragged away, while the other kills the woman he is escorting and then himself. The Apaches then extract and play catch with his liver. The woman's husband, who stayed behind to protect his farm, is captured and tortured to death. McIntosh, an aging U.S. Army scout, is ordered to bring in Ulzana. Joining him will be a few dozen soldiers led by an inexperienced lieutenant, Garnett DeBuin, a veteran Cavalry sergeant, and Ke-Ni-Tay, an Apache scout. Ke-Ni-Tay knows Ulzana because their wives are sisters.

The cavalry troop soon discovers the brutal activities of the Apache war party. The soldiers know they are facing a merciless enemy with far better local skills. DeBuin is shocked by the cruelty and harshness he sees, because it conflicts strongly with his Christian morality and view of humanity. After failing to find Ulzana, McIntosh and Ke-Ni-Tay consider how to outwit their enemy. DeBuin remains cautious and mistrustful of Ke-Ni-Tay, though, because Ulzana did not let him join his war party.

Ulzana and his warriors decide to continue on foot to tire out the pursuing cavalry, while their horses are circuitously led back the other way. However, after Ke-Ni-Tay notices that the tracks are of unladen ponies, McIntosh leads an ambush that kills the horses and their two Apache escorts, one of whom was Ulzana's son. Despite angry protestations, DeBuin forbids his men from mutilating the dead boy.

The war party attack another farm, burning the homesteader to death and seizing two horses. McIntosh realizes that the remaining Apaches physically and psychologically need horses and will try to obtain them by raiding the troop. A woman at the burned-out farm, instead of being murdered following her gang rape, was left alive but injured so the cavalry will be forced to send her to the fort with an escort. By splitting the troop, Ulzana hopes to successfully attack the escort and seize its horses. McIntosh suggests a decoy plan to make Ulzana falsely believe that his tactics are successful.