The sun never sets on the Taylor Sheridan empire.
This month alone, two new Taylor Sheridan shows have debuted (“Marshals,” on CBS and “The Madison” on Paramount+), with at least one more (“The Dutton Ranch” on Paramount+) due before the end of 2026.
It would be one thing, too, if Sheridan simply created new shows and left others to oversee them. While the day-to-day is left to a team of trusted collaborators, Sheridan writes a shocking amount of the material – including whole seasons of the most popular series on television. And while his flagship show, “Yellowstone,” might have reached an abrupt end due to salary disputes and behind-the-scenes wrangling, the franchise is very much alive and well, with several more spinoff series penciled in (including the long-awaited “6666” spinoff set at the historic Texas ranch that Sheridan now owns and “1944,” following in the footsteps of “1883” and “1923”).
But before we get even further along in the Sheridan-verse, we thought we’d pause and take a look at everything that has been released so far – cowboy hats and giant belt buckles are optional but strongly encouraged.
One note: we will not be including “The Road,” Sheridan’s weird country music competition show that Sheridan co-created with Blake Shelton. The show premiered last fall on CBS and, as of now, has yet to be renewed. Instead, we will focus on Sheridan’s narrative output. Yee-haw!
10. “Mayor of Kingstown” (2021 – Present)
“Mayor of Kingstown,” which began in 2021 and concludes its fifth and final season later this year, stars Jeremy Renner as a man running a for-profit prison in fictional Kingstown, Michigan. (Yes, Sheridan deviates from his Old West milieu for this one.) Sheridan co-created the show with Hugh Dillon and has been less involved as the show has trudged along; he hasn’t had a writing credit since the start of season 2 back in early 2023. The narrative clarity of the show has suffered as a result. Stephen King said it in a since-deleted tweet in 2024: We may not know what is going on, but we love the show. Though it’s been tougher as “Mayor of Kingstown” has worn on. It’ll be sad when “Mayor of Kingstown” ends, but maybe it’s for the best. We’ve been locked up for too long.
9. “Tulsa King” (2022 – Present)
“Tulsa King” started out strong, with an ingenious premise – Sylvester Stallone plays a made man who, after going to prison for the family, expects that he’ll be elevated in the New York mafia. Instead, they send him to run an operation in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The series, at least initially, charted the establishment of his new criminal empire and his acclimation to life outside the prison walls. And it was really funny. As the show has gone on, it has gotten darker and more violent, with a new spinoff led by Samuel L. Jackson debuting this fall. And it’s hard not to factor in the absolutely abhorrent behavior of Stallone outside the series, kowtowing to Trump in very public ways, into our enjoyment. (Hey, we tried.)
“Tulsa King” also has some of the most insane behind-the-scenes drama of any of Sheridan’s series, which is saying something, with Terence Winter, a veteran of “The Sopranos” and “Boardwalk Empire,” attempting to leave the show after the first season (he was talked into sticking around but left for good at the end of season 2, replaced by “Mayor of Kingstown” vet Dave Erickson). Sheridan has written the entire first season of “Frisco King,” the Texas-set spinoff with Jackson (after it was initially announced as “NOLA King” and taking place in New Orleans), which has us pretty pumped.
8. “Lawmen: Bass Reeves” (2023)
Originally envisioned as an “1883” spinoff before awkwardly being saddled with the “Lawman” prefix, “Bass Reeves” stars David Oyelowo as the legendary lawman who inspired the Lone Ranger. Sheridan didn’t have much to do with the eventual show, which was overseen by executive producer and writer Chad Feehan (who will be working on the upcoming “The Dutton Ranch” series), and it was a fascinating mixture of historical drama, serial killer thriller and old-fashioned western. At its heart was a riveting, grade-A performance by Oyelowo as a complicated lawman whose oversized legacy belied the very human man at its center.
With a terrific supporting cast that included Donald Sutherland, Dennis Quaid and Barry Pepper, with appearances from Shea Whigham and Garrett Hedlund, “Bass Reeves” broke new ground while also being downright classical in its storytelling. The “Lawman” part of the title was meant to inspire an entire series of shows, with subsequent seasons focused on other iconic lawmen from history. But it seems that “Bass Reeves” wasn’t popular enough. And with Feehan now working on another part of the vast Sheridan ranch, we doubt that the show will ever return.
7. “Marshals” (2026 – Present)
The “Yellowstone” franchise made the jump to network television earlier this year with “Marshals,” which follows Kayce Dutton (Luke Grimes), a former Navy SEAL who is recruited into a specialized group of U.S. Marshals in Montana. There’s an odd amount of crossover, at least thematically, with “The Madison,” with Kayce mourning the death of his beloved wife (Kelsey Asbille) and dealing with raising his troubled son (Brecken Merrill). But in place of “The Madison’s” more nakedly emotional scenes, “Marshals” takes the form of a down-and-dirty action series from the 1980’s. And it works – mostly.
Sheridan, ceding control of one of his “Yellowstone” properties for the first time, entrusted Spencer Hudnut, a veteran of “SEAL Team” and “The Blacklist: Redemption.” Hudnut knows his way around a very workable formula, surrounding Kayce with a group of rough-and-tumble agents (led by a charismatic Logan Marshall-Green), a smattering of additional “Yellowstone” cast members, and just enough cultural commentary about the conflict between outsiders and those on the Native American reservation to keep things interesting. “Marshals” is enjoyable and hugely entertaining, with some of the rougher edges of Sheridan’s best work sanded down to a more palpable, made-for-prime-time sheen.
6. “Lioness” (2023 – Present)
Originally saddled with the ungainly prefix “Special Ops,” the more streamlined “Lioness” follows Cruz Manuelos (Laysla De Oliveira), a former Marine and full-time screw-up, who is drafted into a secret program. Her job is to befriend the daughter of a terror suspect, feeding the CIA valuable intelligence while trying not to get outed.
The early “Lioness” episodes, directed by the great Australian filmmaker John Hillcoat, crackled with an intensity singular even within the full-throttle oeuvre of Sheridan – pushing the limits both physically and emotionally. The show is embroidered by fine performances by Zoe Saldaña as the senior officer in charge of the Lioness program (as electrifying as ever), Nicole Kidman, Morgan Freeman and Michael Kelly. (Season 2 added folks like Kirk Acevedo and Genesis Rodriguez and wisely bumped Kelly and Jennifer Ehl to full-time cast members.)
Incredibly, Sheridan has written every single episode of “Lioness” thus far (it was renewed for a third season), meticulously charting every twist and turn and making a largely female cast just as tough as any of his cowboy shows. He wouldn’t show his sensitive side until “The Madison.” It’s at least good to know it’s there.
5. “1883” (2021 – 2022)
“1883” was always going to be something of a gamble. The first of the “Yellowstone” spinoff series (which didn’t have the branding of the mainline show due to an arcane legal note that would send anything with the title “Yellowstone” to Peacock), Sheridan decided to go far back in time and make a really-for-real western. And the resulting series was pretty spectacular.
“1883” follows James Dillard Dutton (Tim McGraw), John Dutton’s (Kevin Costner) great-grandfather, as he travels west with his family following the Civil War. Sam Elliott is a Pinkerton agent leading the expedition; Faith Hill is Margaret Dutton. By the end of the 10 episodes, the Duttons have settled on the land that will one day become the Yellowstone Ranch. And the amount of suffering and turmoil they have to endure is downright biblical (one review said that Sheridan “leans into misery with a near-perverse glee”).
“1883” was a hugely expensive gamble, but as a test for the elasticity and durability of “Yellowstone” as a franchise, it passed with flying colors. The show was a huge success for Paramount+ and paved the way for future installments in the “Yellowstone” saga. It also, crucially, introduced Isabel May’s doomed Elsa Dutton, whose lyrical narration would be carried over to “1923” and even the final episode of “Yellowstone.” She is haunting the Dutton lineage.
4. “1923” (2022 – 2025)
While “Bass Reeves” at one point carried a “1883” prefix, the true follow-up to “1883” wouldn’t arrive until “1923,” which follows Jacob Dutton (Harrison Ford), the older brother of Tim McGraw’s James Dutton, and his wife Clara (Helen Mirren), during a particularly tumultuous time for the Dutton Ranch. Among the complications: a wealthy landowner (a vicious, mustache-twirling Timothy Dalton) who attempts to seize the land, an ongoing drought and the lawlessness of Prohibition.
The scope and scale of “1883” has opened up considerably, offering crisscrossing narrative paths, including some dedicated to Teonna Rainwater (Aminah Nieves), a Native American woman with ties to a family that will become a chief adversary to the Duttons in the present “Yellowstone” chronology. There’s also Spencer Dutton (Brandon Sklenar), the younger son of the Duttons from “1883,” who after witnessing the horrors of World War I becomes a big game hunter in Africa and, after a desperate plea to return home, spends much of the series trying to get back to the ranch.
Occasionally, “1923” was in danger of toppling over. There’s just so much stuff. But that unwieldiness lends the series a vital unpredictability and, with 16 episodes spread across two seasons, Sheridan is able to conjure his grandest epic yet, while still embedding enough mysteries for the saga to gamely continue. There’s still more to explore with the Duttons yet.
3. “Landman” (2024 – Present)
With “Landman,” partially based on a nonfiction Texas Monthly podcast by Christian Wallace, Sheridan has given us his greatest creation this side of John Dutton – Tommy Norris (Billy Bob Thornton), a scheming landman working for a fictional company called M-Tex Oil. He’s got a horndog ex-slash-current wife (Ali Larter), a son (Jacob Lofland) desperate to get into the family business, and a well-meaning cheerleader daughter (Michelle Randolph). And that’s just on the home side. At work, he’s dealing with a drug kingpin turned business partner (Andy Garcia) and his boss’s wife (Demi Moore), who has taken over the company.
While the first season was reasonably grounded, Season 2 moved out of reality and into Sheridan territory, with subplots involving a killer gas leak, an accidental murder and a nearly “Succession”-level of business world maneuvering. Plus, Sam Elliott was added to the cast as Tommy’s father, which was an undeniable hoot. But at the center of everything is Thornton’s Norris, a hangdog fixer who drinks too much, smokes too much, and is too enamored with his troublemaker wife. He is both the emotional center of “Landman” and its spiritual foundation. In season 2, which just wrapped up, he keeps seeing a wolf that walks up to his property. He knows it’s symbolic of something bad on the horizon, but he can’t keep wheeling and dealing. As he said about cigarettes in a different episode altogether – “it might kill me, but it won’t kill me today.” Amen Tommy.
2. “The Madison” (2026 – Present)
“The Madison,” in some ways, feels like Sheridan’s boldest move yet. It’s an expansion into uncharted territory. If his other shows existed primarily for thrills, “The Madison” is in it for feels.
Originally meant to be another “Yellowstone” spinoff, but since divorced from the mainline series, “The Madison” follows Michelle Pfieffer as she mourns the loss of her husband (Kurt Russell), traveling from New York City to the small Montana cabin where he was the happiest. She brings her two adult daughters with her (one is recently married, the other has kids and is divorced), and they commune with the land and reconnect with the spirit of their lost patriarch. If that sounds hokey, that’s because “The Madison” is unabashedly earnest, oscillating between “The Great Outdoors”-style comedy as the city folk deal with outhouses and hornet stings and riding horses, and deep, exposed-nerve-ending rawness as they deal with a profound loss and all the complicated emotions that surround that loss.
Pfieffer gives perhaps the best performance in any Sheridan production, which is really saying something, and Russell is a sage presence, appearing in flashbacks after the first episode, a spiritual guide from beyond the grave. It’s also the show where Sheridan allows you to truly appreciate the land, as it transforms from threat to treasure in the eyes of the family. So much of his series are about people wrangling for land – whether it’s the Dutton family and those who want to possess the ranch or Tommy Norris searching for new places to drill – in “The Madison,” the land is simply a place of cosmic healing. There’s something deeply beautiful about that. And there’s something deeply beautiful about “The Madison” as a whole.
1. “Yellowstone” (2018 – 2024)
“Yellowstone” is the alpha and the omega, not just of the surrounding universe that it has inspired but of Sheridan’s television output as a whole. When the show debuted, Sheridan was still known as one of Hollywood’s most exciting screenwriters, an actor-turned-scribe who had written “Sicario” and “Hell or High Water,” which had earned Sheridan an Academy Award nomination, and directed the gritty thriller “Wind River” (a movie that clearly stands as the test run for “Yellowstone”). With “Yellowstone,” marketed as a western melodrama in the vein of “Dallas,” Sheridan entered another stratosphere.
Kevin Costner plays John Dutton III, who owns the titular ranch in Montana, a large cattle ranch that is constantly under siege – from unscrupulous developers and neighboring interests, like the Rainwater clan on the nearby reservation. Early seasons of the show cast Dutton as a mythic figure, who would coldheartedly order the execution of those who crossed him, all while cozying up to his extended, extremely screwed-up family. As the seasons went on, Dutton was less of a kingpin character, eventually becoming the governor of the state. The drama turned inward, focusing on the squabbling siblings and the lengths they were willing to go to in order to protect or usurp the family’s combined power. Of course, at the height of the show’s popularity (when it became the most-watched program on TV), a real-life falling out between Sheridan and Costner meant that the show’s star would walk away before the series had concluded. This meant a last-minute scramble that saw the last season dealing with the fallout of both the real-world drama and how John was written out in the aftermath. It more fizzled out than crescendoed.
But the show remains a phenomenon, and Sheridan’s construction of it is a truly dizzying accomplishment. This was a series where something was happening all the time. An early episode had a character discover priceless dinosaur bones and get involved in a meth lab explosion – the same episode! And while it didn’t always work, it was one of the most compelling, most compulsively watchable shows of the modern era. Sheridan was never courting the kinds of accolades that accompanied most prestige TV. He just wanted to make a show that you couldn’t take your eyes off of. He succeeded spectacularly.
