Every Taylor Sheridan TV Series, Ranked

Sheridan's first non- Yellowstone franchise series (co-created with Hugh Dillon, who also acts on the show) is a prison drama starring Jeremy Renner. It's set in a depressed Michigan town that has tried to offset its economic decline by becoming home to a number of privately owned prisons. Renner plays Mike McClusky, a fixer who serves as the point of contact between the prisons, the cops, and the street gangs, working behind the scenes to try to keep all the bad things in town from getting worse. 

Throughout the show's run, critics have been unable to get over the Kingstown's unrelenting, almost self-parodic bleakness. It's an exceedingly grim and brutal drama, but it's kept watchable by suspenseful plotting and fine performances from the cast, especially Renner. 

"At the heart of Taylor Sheridan and Hugh Dillon's Paramount+ series Mayor Of Kingstown is a bleak vision of the world. Violence isn't so much the language of its central characters (cops, prison guards, gang members, and police officers in the fictional titular town) as the very air they breathe, while punishment and revenge are their structuring principles. Whether such a portrait is descriptive (here is the world as it is, depressing as that may be to understand) or pessimistic (here is the world as it could be, frustrating as that may be to imagine) is unclear. Intentionally so, perhaps. But that doesn't make it any less discomfiting." —Manuel Betancourt, The A.V. Club

Sheridan assembled arguably his greatest cast for this operator thriller. It features three Academy Award winners: Zoe Saldaña, Nicole Kidman, and Morgan Freeman. Saldaña leads the series as Joe, a CIA agent who heads the Agency's Lioness team, which embeds female spies inside of terrorist organizations. It's dangerous, high-stakes work, and Joe works to keep her undercovers Cruz Manuelos (Laylsa de Olivera) and Josephina Carillo (Genesis Rodriguez) safe while also starting to question whether all the stress and suffering is worth it.

While critics appreciate Saldaña and de Olivera's performances, overall they mostly find the show to be overly familiar, with many cliches lifted from other spy and military dramas. They say its writing is not up to the level of its stellar cast.

"For Lioness, Sheridan has assembled a handful of Strong Female Character tropes and sent them to war—resulting in a serviceable intelligence drama that escapes mediocrity thanks to its two leads." —Kristen Baldwin, Entertainment Weekly

The first Yellowstone sequel series follows Kayce Dutton as he puts his quiet life as a rancher on hold to work as a U.S. Marshal capturing bad guys in Montana. He's recruited to the unit by his former Navy SEAL team leader Pete Calvin (Logan Marshall-Green) and puts both his SEAL training and Montana knowledge to use as he gets to know his new found family.

Marshals is a broadcast procedural, and critics generally don't like broadcast procedurals. Reviews noted that it feels more like a CBS show than a Sheridan show, with its familiar case-of-the-week structure and info-dumping dialogue. But the show was renewed for a second season just days after its debut in early 2026.

"On paper, the setup promises propulsion alongside introspection, a character study nested within a law-enforcement procedural. In practice, the series settles into a rhythm recognizable to broadcast audiences: suspects identified, pursuits mounted, confrontations resolved, with larger emotional undercurrents simmering in the background." —Zaki Hasan, TheWrap

The flagship show of Sheridan's empire, Yellowstone follows the Dutton family, owners of Montana's largest ranch, as they fend off challengers who are trying to take their land, whether that's real estate developers, the local Native American tribe, the government, or each other. Kevin Costner stars in the first four-and-a-half seasons, with a breakout supporting cast including Kelly Reilly, Cole Hauser, Luke Grimes, and Wes Bentley.

The series never enjoyed critical plaudits in keeping with its popularity, as reviewers were turned off by its scattered storytelling and perceived conservative politics. But Yellowstone was consistently praised for its cinematography that showed off the West's stunning landscape.

"Yellowstone doesn't seem to offer up too much that we haven't already seen...but that seems to be the age-old Yellowstone pattern. Each season a new adversary, a new challenge to Dutton's throne, and some new assassins in the game, and by the end, John and the family generally thwart off all their invasions, sometimes just by the skin of their teeth in bloody and brutal battles." —Rodrigo Perez, The Playlist

Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell star in this family drama about New Yorkers discovering the natural majesty and neighborly culture of Montana. Pfeiffer plays Stacy Clyburn, a wealthy Manhattanite grieving a life-altering tragedy who brings her family—adult daughters Abby (Beau Garrett) and Paige (Elle Chapman), son-in-law Russell (Patrick J. Adams), and two granddaughters—to Montana's Madison River Valley in an effort to spiritually connect with who and what they've lost.

Critics found the show to be very different from most of Sheridan's work in some ways, and frustratingly similar to the rest of his shows in other ways. On the one hand, it's more intimate and less aggressive than his usual testosterone-driven material. On the other hand, it's melodramatic, nearly plotless, and fond of cliches and stereotypes. 

"It's rare to see something on TV that's a mix of Nicholas Sparks, A River Runs Through It, Virgin River, and Green Acres. But the shouting, the lectures, the insults? That's all Sheridan." —Noel Murray, The A.V. Club

Billy Bob Thornton leads this oil business drama set in the rough-and-tumble fields of West Texas. He plays Tommy Norris, the land manager, or "landman," for a drilling company. His job consists of dealing with problems left and right, like on-the-job accidents, legal headaches, and drug cartels stealing the company's equipment. At home, he has even more problems with his hell-raising ex-wife Angela (Ali Larter), spoiled daughter Ainsley (Michelle Randolph), and headstrong son Cooper (Jacob Lofland).

Critics have a ton of problems with Landman. Its tone is confusing. Its plot is nearly nonexistent. Its retrograde depiction of women can charitably be described as "problematic." But it's impossible to not be charmed by Thornton's charismatic performance, or appreciate the show's timely and complex themes about the energy industry. 

"The series arguably leans too often into clichés—like an abundance of country music on the soundtrack and scantily clad female characters strolling across the screen—but it also offers an unvarnished look at a contentious industry and the lives tethered to it." —pine breaks, Slant Magazine

A Western that so far is Sheridan's only show about a real person, this historical drama limited series tells the story of Bass Reeves (David Oyelowo), who escaped slavery and became the first Black U.S. Marshal west of the Mississippi. Reeves was a larger-than-life figure of the Old West who reportedly arrested over 3,000 men. The show tells tales of his exploits, with a supporting cast that includes Dennis Quaid, Barry Pepper, and Donald Sutherland in his final television role.

Critics appreciated Oyelowo's earnest but gritty performance and the way the show shines a spotlight on a worthwhile historical figure. It's a traditional Western made in Sheridan's image (though it was created by writer Chad Feehan). Lawmen was devised as an anthology series following a different law enforcement legend each season, but a second season has not materialized thus far.

"Lawmen: Bass Reeves benefits from a sturdy performance by David Oyelowo at its center, effectively strikes the balance between tough talk, gunplay, and sentiment typical of a [Taylor Sheridan] production, and offers some perspective on a formative era of US history." —Johnny Loftus, Decider

This Sylvester Stallone vehicle is unique in Sheridan's oeuvre: It's (mostly) a comedy. Stallone plays Dwight Manfredi, a New York mafioso exiled to Tulsa, Okla., where he sets up shop. He puts a ragtag crew together and starts taking Tulsa's underworld by storm, which attracts the attention of various foes, including rival gangs, the DEA, and his own jealous crime family.

More often than not, reviewers were charmed by Stallone's playful performance and the show's overall willingness to have fun, even if many of the individual parts don't really fit. The haphazard plotting and reliance on cliches were most commonly singled out, as they often are in Sheridan shows—even ones he doesn't write, like this one. (Sheridan wrote the pilot then handed it off to other writers and producers, most notably former Sopranos executive producer Terence Winter.) 

"Once the newness of Tulsa wears off for Dwight, he'll need to find fresh comedic sources, and there's no telling what those might be — or if the series will simply lose its loose, laidback vibes altogether. But for now, Tulsa King is a much-needed light amid Sheridan's dark universe — and much of it is thanks to its star." —Ben Travers, IndieWire

This Yellowstone prequel limited series tells the story of how the Dutton Ranch was founded. In the year of the title, James and Margaret Dutton (real-life spouses Tim McGraw and Faith Hill) travel across the country via wagon train in search of a new life on the American frontier. The story is told from the perspective of their 17-year-old daughter Elsa Dutton (Isabel May) as the original Duttons face animals, disease, bandits, and other people and things that are all trying to kill them before they reach their destination.

Critics enjoyed 1883 more than the average Sheridan series for its clarity. It's a simple story of people on a journey from one point to another and the hardships they face that make them who they are. It's an often grueling show, but no matter how bleak it gets, there's always a glimmer of optimism. 

"Compared to Yellowstone's quippy one-liners and affection for comical, often gruesome brawls, 1883 isn't exactly a fun road trip. But that seems to be the point. Its gritty tale isn't a romantic portrait of the hardship of the Old West or the cattle drivers who will lead us to one family in Montana. It's a grim reminder that the wagon-worn, horse-beaten trails leading to supposed freedom—whatever that really meant—are not just littered with abandoned supplies, outlaws, or even the bones of the unlucky. They're also littered with big questions about the costs and benefits of westward expansion, whose answers depend only on whose perspective you cotton to most. This isn't just the Duttons' traumatic origin story; in many ways, it's the American West's, too." —Tracy Moore, Vanity Fair

Sheridan's best-reviewed series to date is the second Yellowstone prequel, a sprawling epic that travels from Montana to Africa and Europe and back again. It tells the star-crossed love story of World War I veteran and big game hunter Spencer (Brandon Sklenar) and his British aristocrat bride Alexandra Dutton (Julia Schlaepfer)—John Dutton's grandparents—as the journey around the globe to get back to the ranch; Spencer's uncle and aunt Jacob (Harrison Ford) and Cara Dutton (Helen Mirren) as they try to protect the ranch from people who would take it; and Teonna Rainwater (Aminah Nieves), ancestor of Yellowstone's Native American leader Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham), as she escapes from a brutal residential school.

1923 earned praise for the ambition of its production and for Sklenar and Schlaepfer's chemistry. Their storyline is grandly romantic, and Sklenar and Schalepfer play it perfectly. Critics also enjoyed the knowingly iconic performances from Ford and Mirren.

"The consistently shallow and clichéd writing often fades away under the production value of 1923 and the sheer scope of what Sheridan and his team are attempting. It's old-fashioned dramatic entertainment, where we swallow lines like 'I will not allow today to be the last time I see your face' because of the deep sincerity with which they're uttered." —Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com