Hostiles

Spoiler alert! Please do not read the following plot summary if you have not seen the film.In 1892, settler Wesley Quaid and his family are attacked by a Comanche war group proceeding to kill and scalp him and to shoot his three children. Only his wife Rosalee manages to escape from the attack, hiding in a small rock outcrop in the forest. In Fort Berringer, New Mexico, Captain Joseph Blocker rounds up an escaping Apache family and brings them back to the fort. He is then called to the office of Colonel Abraham Biggs, who informs him of his final orders before retirement, based on a directive from the President: escort dying Cheyenne war chief Yellow Hawk, along with his family, back to their tribal lands in Montana. Under threat of a court-martial and loss of his pension if he refuses to follow the orders, Blocker reluctantly accepts, despite his own gory history with the chief, who was responsible for the death of several of his friends and comrades. Blocker chooses the detail that will accompany him: his trusty old friend Sergeant Thomas Metz, long-time aide Corporal Woodson, and promising newcomer Lieutenant Kidder, fresh from West Point. Biggs also assigns to the detail a young French-speaking recruit, Private DeJardin.

They begin their journey but Blocker orders a stop and has the two native men put in chains. The group comes across the charred Quaid house and dead settler. Inside the house they find Rosalee and her three "sleeping" children. Rosalee is initially hostile towards the Cheyenne family because of the attack on her family but agrees to sleep in their camp after some coaxing from Blocker. She is convinced to bury her family and join Blocker's detail until their next stop-over. They are soon ambushed by the Comanche party, resulting in DeJardin's death and Woodson being seriously wounded. After this attack, Yellow Hawk convinces Blocker that it is in everyone's best interest to unchain him and his family. The next day, the bodies of the surviving Comanche party, who had managed to flee during their previous encounter, are discovered dead. Blocker deduces that Yellow Hawk and his son, Black Hawk, killed them thanks to Metz allowing them to leave the camp during the night. After a brief stop at Fort Winslow in Colorado to drop off the wounded Woodson and Rosalee, Blocker is instructed to take disgraced Sergeant Charles Wills, who killed a family with an ax, to be court-martialed and hanged at a stop at his original post along the way to Montana. Joining Blocker’s company to oversee Wills are Corporal Tommy Thomas and Sergeant Malloy. Meanwhile, Rosalee decides to continue on with Blocker, despite being offered sanctuary at Fort Winslow until the next supply train at Christmas. One night, the women are abducted by three fur traders as they wash dishes in the stream by their camp. The company, assisted by Yellow Hawk and Black Hawk, manages to track down the fur traders and slaughter them to rescue the women; however, Sergeant Malloy is killed. During a downpour, Wills manages to fool Kidder into sympathetically undoing his chains, only to kill him and escape but not before Blocker shoots him. He is later tracked down by Metz, who then takes his own life, succumbing to decades of PTSD.

Blocker arrives with the dying chief at his tribal lands in Montana where he dies and is buried. The white landowner and his three sons arrive to the place as the chief is buried and threatens Blocker and the rest of the group for burying an Indian on his land. Blocker tells the landowner that the chief is not leaving the land. The confrontation results in a brutal gun battle killing Black Hawk, his wife Elk Woman, his sister Living Woman, and Corporal Tommy Thomas, while leaving alive only Blocker, Rosalee, and Black Hawk's young son, Little Bear. In the final scene, Rosalee and Little Bear reluctantly depart on a train from Montana to Chicago, without Blocker, but, at the last second, Blocker jumps on the back of the train.