3 Taylor Sheridan Movies to Watch While Waiting for ‘Yellowstone’ Spinoffs

While Taylor Sheridan’s name is now associated with creating several Western television series, like Yellowstone and Tulsa King, the filmmaker cut his teeth on creating some of the finest crime thriller movies of the last decade.

For those missing Yellowstone, 1883, 1923, or just waiting on the latest Yellowstone spinoff The Madison, these three dazzling films from Sheridan should give you the fix you’re looking for.

Sicario

This 2015 action flick from Dune filmmaker Denis Villeneuve is still Sheridan’s finest hour as a script writer. Two FBI agents (played by Emily Blunt and Daniel Kaluuya) join forces with CIA officer Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) and a former lawyer-turned-assassin from Mexico (Benicio del Toro) to catch a cartel kingpin who is hiding out in the United States. The 3-time Oscar-nominated Sicario is pulse-pounding and full of twists, and well worth the watch.

Hell or High Water

Another immaculate screenplay from Sheridan, this neo-Western heist film follows two bank-robbing brothers (Chris Pine and Ben Foster) in West Texas trying to scrounge up enough cash to rescue their father’s family ranch from foreclosure. But Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges), a soon-to-retire Texas Ranger, isn’t going to let them get away with it so easily. Hell or High Water screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016, and was nominated for four Academy Awards.

Wind River

Sheridan’s second time in the director’s chair is so thoughtful and taciturn, you’d almost be surprised to learn it’s from the Yellowstone guy. Starring Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen, the story revolves around a U.S. Fish and Wildlife animal tracker who must partner with a detective to solve the rape and murder of a Northern Arapaho tribe member. Sheridan said he wrote the film to raise awareness of the extremely high number of Indigenous and Native American women who are raped, abducted or murdered in the United States, and an ending title card for the film reads: “While missing person statistics are compiled for every other demographic, none exist for Native American women.”