If you love Yellowstone and Westerns, intricate family dramas, or shows about power, here are five more shows to watch that are like the Taylor Sheridan and John Linson-scribed show.
Yellowstone has been a runaway horse of a success. Season 5 Part 2 of the Montana ranch-based show lands later this year following the mid-season finale in early 2023, and it’s spawned a number of spin-offs that fans will definitely want to check out. Prequel series 1883 is set during the Old West.
While 1923 is set during the Western Expansion, in the time of Prohibition and the Great Depression. We’ll leave these obvious choices out of our round-up because they’re natural go-tos. Other spin-offs are in development, too – including one titled Bass Reeves and another called 6666. So look out for them.
Love Yellowstone and need to wrangle some similar series’ to satisfy your hunger for the Western aesthetic, themes, and family drama? Allow us to lasso you a herd of shows to suit – here are five shows to watch if you love Yellowstone.
Dallas
Never seen Dallas? Now is the time to watch the original drama about feuding families, ranches, generational conflict, and present-day rivalries.
Both Dallas and Yellowstone have soap-opera scale and complex character entanglements. Both are about family dynamics and business, although Dallas centers on oil barons rather than modern-day cowboys. You’ll find stetsons in both, though. Both shows also explore old-fashioned values. Those that say men should be men, women should be women, and everybody should know their place.
Bursting at the seams with machismo, machinations political, criminal, and personal, Dallas was characterized by cliffhangers. Yellowstone notably followed suit in its Season 3 finale.
Deadwood
If you love Yellowstone and you’re after a Western series cut through with something akin to kitchen-sink realism mixed with dialed-up drama, stop – Deadwood could be one of the shows you’re looking for.
Deadwood ran for three seasons and is set in 1870s South Dakota. The series follows the growth of the town of Deadwood, with a focus on the real-life characters of Al Swearengen, played by a potty-mouthed Ian McShane, and Seth Bullock, played by Timothy Olyphant. It is considered one of the greatest TV shows ever made.
Succession
Succession is set on the East Coast, rather than the ‘Wild West’ Montana location of Yellowstone. But both shows are essentially about a patriarchal father and his emotionally floundering offspring attempting to defend their empire from external pressures. Central to both is the kids’ fight for approval and the theme of wealth and power and how they corrupt.
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Succession follows the Roy family, who are fighting for control of the family business – a media and entertainment conglomerate – in the wake of family patriarch Logan Roy’s decline in health.
Virgin River
On the face of it, if you’ve never watched Virgin River you might think it has little in common with Yellowstone. The premise sets up a potentially fluffy romantic drama, with nurse practitioner Mel Monroe upping sticks from Los Angeles to seek a new start in a remote California town.
However, as the series progresses, secrets begin to emerge among the town’s residents and newcomers. Just like Yellowstone, it’s a show about complex relationships, shady and tragic pasts, and the cauldron of isolated and/or rural living.
The Son
Starring Pierce Brosnan, The Son ran for two seasons on AMC between 2017 and 2019. Set in Texas across two timelines – the 1840s and early 1900s – parallels with Yellowstone (and its spin-offs), which flashes back to the past, are clear.
Brosnan’s character in The Son, Eli McCulloch, was taken as a young teen by Comanches and raised as an adopted son. In the present day of 1915, McCulloch is a ruthless cattle baron turned oil tycoon. The Son follows McCulloch battling to preserve his business interests as he prepares to pass his empire on to his children. Like Kevin Costner’s John Dutton in Yellowstone, he has complicated relationships with his kids.
Yellowstone returns with Season 5 Part 2 later in 2023, while you can read everything we’ve written about the show here.