14 Shows Like Yellowstone – Best TV Show Westerns to Watch

By Emily Lemon On Apr 2, 2022

Yellowstone season 4 is now available to watch (or rewatch) on Peacock. The season continues the saga of the Dutton family, Montana landowners—or conquering settlers—since 1883, when James Dutton first settled the Yellowstone. Over 100 years later, the land is no more secure from outside threats than it was in the nineteenth century. Land grabs by outside investors and political elbowing by the Broken Rock Reservation—plus lots of very vague spending, leaving the ranch with cash flow issues and reversible only by getting into the horse business! —all leave the Dutton empire vulnerable. And then there’s Jamie. Sigh.

What makes the series the most popular show on cable? First: Beth Dutton. After that, we suppose the family drama at the heart of the series, and a plot structure we can’t say isn’t unlike the best of daytime soap operas.

There’s also something particularly American about the series, which we might locate in the Dutton’s family values—emphasis placed on its migrant ancestry, the self-imposed duty to protect land, the desire to live unmolested by state and federal government, the importance of freedom. These are also frontier values, as are family and land over everything else. And the suspicion that everyone else who is not family is somehow out to get ya!

While we can unpack all the xenophobic tension contained in these values (because isn’t the premise of the show simply one family’s fear of outsiders coming onto their land?), as well as a latent desire to return to an American past where problems were solved by keeping one’s word and knowing when to draw one’s gun—while we could harp on all these features—Yellowstone is never not entertaining, never not beautiful to look at, never not unapologetically itself.

And so if you’re looking for everything that makes Yellowstone Yellowstone, but in a new packaging, here are some shows to check out.

These are the 14 best shows to watch if you love Yellowstone.

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Obviously. 1883 tells the story of John Dutton’s (Kevin Costner) great grandfather, James Dutton. James is the first Dutton to go west, and he settles the Yellowstone (spoiler!) shortly after the titular date. More than anything, the series shows us why his descendent works so hard to protect the land: if it took this much blood, sweat, and tears to settle the territory, it must be defended at the same cost.

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At the heart of Yellowstone is a patriarchal drama. The family patriarch who lords over the family’s assets offers the ring to be kissed by his sons (and one daughter). Unlike Yellowstone, where no one seems to want the land (the empire), in Succession, everyone wants the throne.

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There is no stronger family patriarch in television than Tony Soprano. The Sopranos are the blueprint for modern television and so their genes are as much in Yellowstone as the genes of any American western. If you don’t mind substituting beautiful Montana for, well, New Jersey, then this is your next binge.

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Yellowstone has neglected its Broken Rock Reservation storyline over the past two seasons. If you want more television featuring stories of Native American peoples, Reservation Dogs—executive produced by Taika Waititi—is your show. Yellowstone needs to step it up in season 5.

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Prestige film actor (a bearded Pierce Brosnan) riding into television: check. Ruthless family patriarch with strained relationship with a son: check. Threats to an empire helmed by said patriarch: check. Violence: definitely check.

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Remember that town in 1883 where James Dutton and his family briefly stayed and where there was just lawlessness and salon shootouts and no-bullshit sheriffs? Well that’s Deadwood. Except it’s every episode.

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Like The Sopranos before, Boardwalk Empire is a mobster series featuring one man slowly losing control over his kingdom. Set in Prohibition Atlantic City, the series features the same political maneuvering you see in Yellowstone with even more action.

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Hell on Wheels might as well be the same television universe as 1883. Set slightly before that moment and focusing on the construction of the First Transcontinental Railroad, the series follows a former confederate soldier turned leader of a cross continental voyage. Sounds just like James Dutton to us.

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What if Timothy Olyphant’s Deadwood character lived another century and moved to Appalachia? Well we’d get another Timothy Olyphant sheriff who plays by his own rules. John Dutton would never stand a chance on the other end of the law.

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Like Justified, Longmire is a modern day western, focusing on small town law enforcement. Like Yellowstone, a major dynamic of early seasons concerns the state’s relationship with its tribal jurisdictions.

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We’re not saying SOA‘s Jax is basically Kayce Dutton, but we’re also not not saying the two sons of powerful and morally dubious father, both of whom must question their own place in their violent family empires are pretty familiar.

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As if you need a reason other than Jason Momoa to watch this series. Centered on the North American fur trade in the late 16th century, Frontier is the historically oldest show on this list. It’s even more wild than any outlaw town of traditional American westerns.

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Set in 1884, Godless tells the story of an outlaw taking refuge in a town populated almost entirely by women. It’s a limited series and so makes for a quick watch. If you wondered what a town full of Margaret Duttons would do to outside threats, this is your show.

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We know, just watch the original Walker, Texas Ranger. Still, the reboot (and its announced prequel series) gives us something close to the Taylor Sheridan Yellowstone universe experience.

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