Grumpy cattle baron George McLintock has his hands full! As the owner of the largest ranch in the area and the town's namesake, he has to mediate again and again between the local farmers, newly arriving settlers and local Indian tribes, who are constantly clashing. When his prickly still-wife Katherine, who actually lives separately from him, appears, and his daughter Becky begins to turn the heads of the boys in town, the old man's collar soon bursts. McLintock suspects that if order is to be restored in his city, he will soon have to pull other strings ...