A viewer's guide to Taylor Sheridan's world of ranches, borders and oil fields

Taylor Sheridan's name is in the news again, which makes this a good moment to ask a simpler question. If you have never watched any of his work, what exactly are you walking into?

The short answer is the modern American West, seen as a place where old codes of loyalty and land collide with money, crime and government. The longer answer takes a map, because his output now runs to several films and a long shelf of television series. Here is a way to make sense of it.

Where it started: three films about the frontier

Sheridan began as an actor, with roles in shows such as Sons of Anarchy, before turning to writing. His reputation was built on three films released in quick succession, which he has described as a loose trilogy about the modern frontier:

• Sicario (2015): an FBI agent is pulled into a murky operation against a drug cartel on the US-Mexico border. Directed by Denis Villeneuve.
• Hell or High Water (2016): two brothers rob branches of the bank that is about to foreclose on their family's land in West Texas, while an aging ranger closes in. It earned Sheridan an Oscar nomination for original screenplay.
• Wind River (2017): a wildlife tracker and a young FBI agent investigate a killing on a reservation in snowbound Wyoming. Sheridan also directed this one.

The stories are not connected by characters, only by place and theme. Each is a tight, self-contained crime story, and each runs about two hours. A sequel, Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018), followed, also written by Sheridan.

The Dutton family saga

The work most people know is Yellowstone, co-created with John Linson. Kevin Costner plays John Dutton, who controls the largest ranch in Montana and will do almost anything to keep it from developers, a neighboring reservation and the state. It is part family drama, part Western, part political thriller.

Its success grew into a family tree. Two prequels follow earlier generations of Duttons:

• 1883: the family's journey west by wagon train, starring Sam Elliott, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. It is a single, complete season.
• 1923: the ranch in the era of drought, the Depression's approach and Prohibition, led by Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren.

The prequels feel different from the parent show. They are slower, sadder and more interested in hardship than in power plays, and many viewers who bounce off Yellowstone find they prefer them.

The rest of the shelf

Beyond the Duttons, Sheridan has created or co-created a run of series that stand alone:

• Mayor of Kingstown: a family that brokers deals between prisoners, guards and police in a Michigan prison town. It was co-created with Canadian actor and musician Hugh Dillon.
• Tulsa King: Sylvester Stallone as a New York mobster exiled to Oklahoma. Lighter and funnier than most of the list.
• Special Ops: Lioness: a CIA program that places women undercover close to terrorist targets, with Zoe Saldaña and Nicole Kidman.
• Landman: Billy Bob Thornton as a fixer in the West Texas oil business, drawn from a podcast about the Permian Basin boom.

He has also been an executive producer on other series, such as Lawmen: Bass Reeves, which tells a version of the story of a real Black deputy US marshal in the 1800s.

What the stories have in common

Once you have seen two or three, the shared threads are easy to spot:

1. Land as identity. Ranches, reservations, oil leases and border towns are not backdrops. Characters fight over them as if their souls were attached.
2. Institutions that fail people. Banks, governments and prisons rarely come off well. Characters often take justice into their own hands, and the shows let you decide how you feel about it.
3. Hard, terse dialogue. Sheridan's characters talk in short, quotable lines and long, philosophical speeches, sometimes in the same scene.
4. Violence with weight. Killings tend to be sudden and costly. Most of this work is aimed at adults, with graphic scenes and strong language.
5. Wide open landscape. Big skies and empty roads do a lot of the storytelling.

A fair note for newcomers: the TV series, especially the later seasons of Yellowstone, have drawn criticism for sprawling plots and uneven pacing. The films are generally considered tighter.

Where a newcomer might start

It depends on how much time you want to give.

• One evening: watch Hell or High Water. It is the warmest and most accessible of the films, with dark humor and a strong ending.
• A weekend: try 1883. It is complete in one season, so you get a full story with no cliffhanger left hanging.
• A long project: start Yellowstone in release order, then go back to the prequels. Watching 1883 first also works, but some of its emotional moments land harder once you know the later family.
• If you like crime more than cowboys: begin with Sicario or Mayor of Kingstown.
• If you want something lighter: Tulsa King is the easiest place to relax.

One practical tip: streaming rights for these titles have changed over the years and are not always the same in Canada and the United States. Before committing to a full series, check which service carries every season where you live, so you are not stranded halfway through.

Wherever you begin, you will quickly learn whether Sheridan's West is for you. If one title grabs you, the rest of the map is waiting.