What other hit TV shows or movies has Taylor Sheridan created besides Yellowstone?
Taylor Sheridan has established himself as one of the most prolific and successful storytellers in modern Hollywood, with a remarkable body of work that extends well beyond Yellowstone. His career as a writer and creator really took off with his screenplay for Sicario in 2015, a tense and critically acclaimed thriller about the drug war along the US-Mexico border, directed by Denis Villeneuve and starring Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin, and Benicio del Toro. That film was so well received that it spawned a sequel, Sicario: Day of the Soldado in 2018, for which Sheridan also wrote the screenplay.
Perhaps his most celebrated early work was Hell or High Water in 2016, which he wrote and which was directed by David Mackenzie. That film starred Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine, and Ben Foster in a story about two brothers robbing banks in West Texas to save their family ranch. It received four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, and is widely considered one of the finest American films of that decade. Around the same time, Sheridan wrote and directed Wind River in 2017, a crime thriller set on a Native American reservation in Wyoming starring Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen. That film was also critically praised and demonstrated his deep interest in the American West and its forgotten or marginalized communities.
On the television side, Sheridan has been extraordinarily busy building what some have called the Sheridan universe on the Paramount Network and Paramount Plus. He created 1883, a prequel to Yellowstone that premiered in 2021 and starred Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, and Sam Elliott, following the Dutton family ancestors as they traveled west in a wagon train. The show was a massive hit and earned considerable critical attention. He followed that with 1923, another Yellowstone prequel set during the Prohibition era and the Great Depression, starring Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren, which became one of the most watched shows on Paramount Plus when it debuted in 2022. Both prequel series demonstrated that audiences were hungry for more stories set in that world.
Sheridan also created Mayor of Kingstown, which premiered on Paramount Plus in 2021 and stars Jeremy Renner as a power broker in a Michigan town whose economy revolves around its prison system. The show explores themes of crime, corruption, and systemic failure in the American justice system. He created Tulsa King in 2022, a crime comedy starring Sylvester Stallone as a New York mafia boss who gets exiled to Tulsa, Oklahoma, which became a surprise hit and was renewed for additional seasons. He also created Lioness, a military thriller series starring Zoe Saldana about a CIA program that uses female Marines to infiltrate terrorist organizations, which debuted in 2023 and starred an impressive cast including Nicole Kidman and Morgan Freeman.
What makes Sheridan's work distinctive is his consistent thematic preoccupation with the American West, questions of land and legacy, the tension between old ways of life and modern encroachment, and communities that feel left behind by mainstream American society. His characters tend to be morally complex, operating in gray areas where the law and justice do not always align. He has an ear for authentic dialogue and a strong visual sensibility that translates well both to film and television. His output has been staggering in its volume and relatively consistent in its quality, making him one of the rare writer-creators who has managed to build an entire franchise ecosystem while maintaining a distinct artistic voice. His success has given him significant creative control and resources, which he has used to attract major Hollywood talent to projects that might otherwise have been considered too regional or niche for mainstream audiences.