TAYLOR SHERIDAN SPENT much of the late ’90s and early 2000s doing one thing: popping in and out of TV shows. Watch Walker, Texas Ranger? You may have seen him in an episode. Party of Five? Yep, he made it there too. He showed up in two different CSIs (as different characters) and an episode of NYPD Blue. Hell, he even made it to space in an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise.
It wasn’t until the mid-to-late 2000s that Sheridan’s acting career really started to stick, as he landed a recurring role in Veronica Mars and booked 21 episodes of Sons of Anarchy. And just as it seemed like things may have started to go according to plan… he stopped. In 2010, when Sheridan turned 40, he shifted his attention away from acting and toward screenwriting.
It took half a decade, but his first two scripts came to life with astounding success: 2015’s Sicario and 2016’s Hell or High Water. Both movies were Academy Award-nominated, with Sheridan’s screenplay specifically getting the nod for Hell or High Water. This earned him some much-desired Hollywood cache, and while there were more movies to come—he directed his own script with 2018’s Wind River, penned a sequel to Sicario, and a handful more—his major attention has since returned to where he started: the small screen.
The success of 2018’s Yellowstone, Sheridan’s first foray into the world of TV on the other side of the camera, opened up the floodgates for what’s been a fruitful relationship between the prolific writer and Paramount. Yellowstone has birthed numerous spinoff series (with more on the way), and what essentially amounts to a blank check for Sheridan to pursue whatever he wants on Paramount+, the company’s streaming network.
In the years since, he’s pursued stories about prison towns and city corruption (Mayor of Kingstown), organized crime (Tulsa King), and military operations (Special Ops: Lioness), all while aiming to maintain the grit, occasional social commentary, and unique form of his earlier work on Sicario and Hell or High Water.
Sheridan has become one of TV’s most prolific writers—and so we decided to bring together a bit of information about each of his ambitious television projects, all in one place. Below, you can find your one-way ticket into the Sheridan-verse. And if you want to keep in spirit with the ever-expanding world of Yellowstone, we won’t mind if you arrive on horseback.
Scripted Taylor Sheridan shows:
Yellowstone (2018 – 202?)
Sheridan’s flagship show, Yellowstone has made it through 4.5* seasons and become a sensation along the way (he co-created the show with John Linson). This neo-Western drama stars Kevin Costner as a man who just wants to hold onto his damn land (while trying his best to keep the rest of his somewhat troublesome family out of the trouble that they frequently find themselves in). Yellowstone is Sheridan’s writing at its purest: sometimes brilliant, sometimes attempting to play with form, and sometimes a little bit baffling. It’s all part of the deal here, but at the end of the day if you like Yellowstone, chances are you’ll end up loving Yellowstone.
*We say 4.5 seasons because Yellowstone is, officially, ending at the end of Season 5. And this is something of a bizarre situation, because the first half of Season 5 aired on Paramount Network last winter… and the second half of the season has not yet been shot. Costner will be bowing out of his John Dutton role to focus more on his Horizon films; Yellowstone will continue with an as-of-now unnamed series led by Matthew McConaughey (more on that later). But know this: the show is ending. We just don’t know when just yet.
Stream Yellowstone on Paramount Network
1883 (2021-2022)
The first Yellowstone spinoff is a prequel set in, you guessed it, 1883. 1883 finds John Dutton’s ancestors in the post-Civil War era, leaving Tennessee and traveling westward, eventually landing in Montana and establishing the Yellowstone ranch that viewers of the main Yellowstone series know the family still controls to this day. 1883, in essence, functions somewhat in the same way as Christopher Walken’s famous scene in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction—adding important context explaining just what intense lengths were gone to in order to secure land that was meant to remain with the Dutton family for generations.
1883 has an impressive cast that features Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Isabel May, and Western legend Sam Elliott.
1923 (2022 – )
Rather than a second season of 1883, the Yellowstone prequel story continues about 40 years into the future with 1923. This series, which stars Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren, finds the Dutton family in their established Montana land in the era of Prohibition and the early stages of the Great Depression.
The show has already completed its first season, and has a second on the way.
Mayor of Kingstown (2021 – )
With Mayor of Kingstown (which Sheridan co-created with Yellowstone‘s Hugh Dillon) the action moves from rural Montana to Kingstown, a fictional prison town in Michigan. The show features Jeremy Renner as Mike McClusky, part of a longtime family of peacekeepers—between numerous parties in the town, including gangs, prisoners, guards, and more—in the town. It’s a strong crime thriller for anyone in the market for one.
Stream Mayor of Kingstown Here
Tulsa King (2022 – )
Sheridan heads out to Oklahoma for Tulsa King, a show that he co-created with The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire veteran Terence Winter. Winter’s expertise with shows focused on organized crime come in handy with Tulsa King, which follows Sylvester Stallone as a mafioso who finds himself banished to Tulsa after a 25-year prison sentence on the east coast. In Tulsa, he begins establishing new operations, including taking over a cannabis dispensary run by Bodhi (Martin Starr) while beginning a flirtation with a woman named Stacy (Andrea Savage), who just happens to be an ATF agent.
Special Ops: Lioness (2023 – )
Sheridan heads back into military thriller mode (a la Sicario) with Special Ops: Lioness, a series that stars Zoe Saldaña as a CIA officer who leads the Lioness program into an operation that aims to take down a terrorist organization from within. The impressive cast also includes Laysla De Oliveira (Locke & Key), Michael Kelly (House of Cards), and a pair of legends in Nicole Kidman and Morgan Freeman.
Stream Special Ops: Lioness Here
Unscripted Taylor Sheridan shows:
The Last Cowboy (2019)
For a bit of that country western twang but with a reality bend, Sheridan also created The Last Cowboy, which airs first run on CMT but is currently streaming on Paramount+. The show follows riders who practice hard in the sport of horse reining, culminating with a competition where the prize is $1 million. There have been two seasons thus far, and a third is on the way.
Upcoming Taylor Sheridan shows:
Lawmen: Bass Reeves (2023 – )
While at a certain point it was planned as another Yellowstone spinoff, Lawmen: Bass Reeves will instead star David Oyelowo as the titular legendary lawman in the first season of what’s planned as an anthology series highlighting various law enforcement figures throughout history (Sheridan is technically only an executive producer here; Chad Feehan is the creator and showrunner). And while this series will not connect to the Yellowstone lore, it will be set in the same time period as 1883. So that’s fun. The show will also feature Dennis Quaid, Forrest Goodluck, Donald Sutherland, Barry Pepper, and Shea Whigham, among others. This one should be fun.
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Untitled Matthew McConaughey-led Yellowstone Sequel
We don’t know a ton about this one, other than the fact that it’s happening; Yellowstone, as led by Kevin Costner, will be ending, and whatever this Yellowstone sequel is, as led by Matthew McConaughey, will be continuing in its place. Will it feature other Yellowstone characters? Will it pick up in Montana? Who is McConaughey playing? All great questions.
The show had originally been set to release before the end of 2023, but with the uncertainty surrounding the filming and release of the second half of Yellowstone Season 5 and now the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes, we may have to wait a bit longer to find out what exactly is going on here.
Land Men (TBA)
One of Sheridan’s next projects will be Land Men, a show about the billionaires and working class people involved with modern day oil rig business in West Texas. Set in West Texas, the show is set to be led by Billy Bob Thornton (reteaming with Sheridan after doing an episode of 1883; he’s also done great work on TV in Fargo and Goliath), while Final Destination‘s Ali Larter will also play a key role.
It sounds like Land Men could be Sheridan returning to explore the same economic disparities that he so smartly put on display in Hell or High Water; for our money, his best movie, and best script.
6666 (TBA)
There have been rumors of Sheridan moving forward with a 6666 spinoff from Yellowstone for a few years now, though nothing really concrete has ever come through. That being said, the fact that one of Yellowstone‘s main characters Jimmy, (played by Jefferson White) has been relocated to the 6666 ranch certainly adds fuel to the fire. There’s also the fact that Sheridan himself purchased the real-life 6666 ranch, which may make this a story particularly close to his heart. We’ll see!
Evan is the culture editor for Men’s Health, with bylines in The New York Times, MTV News, Brooklyn Magazine, and VICE. He loves weird movies, watches too much TV, and listens to music more often than he doesn’t.
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