The life and times of Judge Roy Bean / Warner Bros. Pictures ; First Artists presents a John Huston film ; Coleytown Productions Inc. and the First Artists Production Company and National General Pictures Corporation ; original screenplay by John Milius ; produced by John Foreman ; directed by John Huston.

Roy Bean is a self-made man and saloon-keeper who proclaims himself the law west of the Pecos River, and becomes known as the "Hanging Judge," though he wasn't a judge at all. He writes admiring letters to actress Lily Langtry and makes his own kind of frontier justice in Texas.