Based on Zane Grey's 1925 novel of the same name and written by Lucien Hubbard, the film is about a trader who uncovers a scheme to blame the Indians for a buffalo-herd massacre.

[3][4] It was one of a series of critically and commercially successful Zane Grey westerns produced by Jesse Lasky and Adolph Zukor for Paramount Pictures.

With Jack Holt, Lois Wilson, and Noah Beery, under the direction of William Howard, maker of those two big successes, The Border Legion and The Code of the West, The Thundering Herd is certain to be thunderin' good Western melodrama.

He meets Milly Fayre, played by Lois Wilson, ward of a crooked gambler named Jett who together with a group of outlaws are making buffalo hunting a pretext to cover their banditry.

Terrified by the tragedy, Milly drives over the prairies toward the freighting station, but she is sighted and pursued by braves with hardly a chance of escape until she notices a stamping herd of buffalo bearing down across the plain.

[14] Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times also referenced Remington and wrote: So far as the strong sequences are concerned, it is a work of art...but as a narrative this film is not particularly good...William Howard, the director, has adroitly made the most of his herds of buffalo in the exciting stampede scenes.

"[9]Grace Kingsley in Los Angeles Times: The Thundering Herd is one of those pictures that after it has served its excellent purpose in the way of entertainment in this day, should be folded up and put away for colleges and high schools to look at fifty years from now.