Young Guns II is a 1990 American Western action film and a sequel to Young Guns (1988). It stars Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Christian Slater, and features William Petersen as Pat Garrett. It was written by John Fusco and directed by Geoff Murphy.

It follows the life of Billy the Kid, played by Emilio Estevez, in the years following the Lincoln County War in which Billy was part of "The Regulators" – a group of around six highly skilled gunmen avenging the death of John Tunstall – and the years leading up to Billy's documented death. The film is told by Brushy Bill Roberts, a man who in 1950 appeared claiming to be the real Billy the Kid. 

In 1950, attorney Charles Phalen is contacted by elderly "Brushy Bill" Roberts, who seeks a pardon he was promised 70 years earlier by the governor of the New Mexico Territory. Dismissing Bill's claim that he is really William H. Bonney aka "Billy The Kid", widely believed to have been killed in 1881, Phalen asks if Bill has any proof.

Bill's story begins in 1879, as the famed outlaw has formed a new gang with "Arkansas" Dave Rudabaugh and Pat Garrett. In the wake of the Lincoln County War, New Mexico Governor Lew Wallace has issued warrants for the arrest of everyone involved. Billy's former compatriot Doc Scurlock, now a schoolteacher in New York, is captured and imprisoned alongside fellow Regulator Jose Chavez y Chavez and their old enemies.

Now the most wanted man in New Mexico, Billy meets with Governor Wallace, who agrees to pardon him if he testifies against the Dolan-Murphy faction. Instead, Billy discovers he has been tricked into being arrested with no chance of testifying. He escapes, returning with Dave and Garrett and posing as a lynch mob to free Doc and Chavez, who reluctantly join them on the "Mexican Blackbird" trail to Mexico. Desperate for reinforcements, the gang accepts farmer Hendry William French and teenage Yankee Tom O'Folliard, while Garrett decides to stay behind to open a boarding house.

Billy demands a $500 debt from former ally John Chisum, leaving two of the cattle baron's men dead. Furious, Chisum joins Wallace and they offer Garrett the job of Lincoln County sheriff and $1000 to hunt Bonney down. Forming a posse, Garrett recruits a journalist to document their pursuit. Billy leaves a taunting message for Garrett, and Rudabaugh tries to dig up an Apache burial ground, resulting in a knife fight with the Mexican-Indian Chavez.

Billy and the gang reach the town of White Oaks, spending the night at a bordello run by his former companion Jane Greathouse. A lynch mob gathers, and Deputy Carlyle offers to let the gang go in exchange for handing over Chavez, but Billy dresses the deputy as Chavez and pushes him outside, where he is shot dead by the mob. Garrett tracks the gang to the bordello and burns it down, while Jane strips naked to humiliate the townsfolk and rides away.

The gang is followed closely by Garrett's posse and Tom is shot dead by Garrett, leading Billy to admit that the Mexican Blackbird was only a ruse to keep the gang together. Doc tries to leave for home, but is shot by one of Garrett's men and sacrifices himself to enable his friends to escape, though Chavez is wounded and Billy is captured. Brought back to Lincoln, Billy is sentenced to death and is visited by Jane. She leaves him a pistol in the outhouse, which he uses to kill two guards and escape to Fort Sumner.

Billy finds his gang, but Dave has fled for Mexico, and a dying Chavez leaves to meet his fate alone. That night, an unarmed Billy is confronted by Garrett, and asks to be allowed to run to Mexico while Garrett tells the authorities that he killed him. Certain that Billy would not be able to resist coming back to the United States, Garrett refuses, and prepares to shoot Billy in the back. In the morning, a burial is held for Billy, but Garrett's horse is taken by an unseen figure.

Back in 1950, Brushy Bill concludes his story, convincing Phalen that he is Billy the Kid. An epilogue reveals that Dave was beheaded in Mexico as a warning to other outlaws; Garrett's book was a failure and he was shot and killed in 1908; Brushy Bill met with the governor of New Mexico, but despite corroboration from several surviving friends of the Kid, he was discredited and died less than a month later; whether or not he was Billy the Kid remains a mystery. 

    Emilio Estevez as William H. "Billy the Kid" Bonney and Brushy Bill Roberts (uncredited for the latter)

Kiefer Sutherland as Josiah Gordon "Doc" Scurlock, Billy's right hand man in the Regulators

Lou Diamond Phillips as Jose Chavez y Chavez, the Mexican-Indian member of the Regulators

Christian Slater as "Arkansas" Dave Rudabaugh, a reckless outlaw who joined the Regulators

    William Petersen as Pat Garrett, the newly appointed Sheriff of Lincoln County

    Alan Ruck as Hendry William French, a composite character loosely based on Henry Brown and Jim French, a farmhand recruited into the Regulators

    R.D. Call as D.A. Rynerson

    James Coburn as John Chisum, a wealthy cattle baron that owed Billy the Kid money, but chose to join the House in hunting him down

    Balthazar Getty as Tom O'Folliard, the youngest recruit in the Regulators

    Jenny Wright as Jane Greathouse, owner of the White Oaks bordello

    Jack Kehoe as Ashmun Upson, a journalist Garrett hired to document the pursuit against the Regulators

    Robert Knepper as Deputy Carlyle, a lawman who led the lynch mob in White Oaks

    Tom Kurlander as Deputy Sheriff J.W. Bell, a Lincoln county lawman who kept tabs on Billy the Kid prior to his escape

    Viggo Mortensen as John W. Poe

    Tracey Walter as Beever Smith

    Bradley Whitford as Charles Phalen

    Scott Wilson as Governor Lew Wallace, incumbent Governor of New Mexico

    Leon Rippy as Deputy Sheriff Bob Olinger, a disgruntled Lincoln County deputy who oversaw Regulator members being locked away

    Howie Young as Poe Posse

    Richard Schiff as Rat Bag

    Ginger Lynn as Dove

Jon Bon Jovi briefly appears in a nonspeaking role as a bandit who attempts escaping during the prison scene