Sam Elliott’s New Taylor Sheridan Show Highlights The 2 Biggest Western Changes In The Last 10 Years

Sam Elliott’s upcoming role in Landman season 2 highlights two of the biggest ways the Western genre has changed since 2015. Sam Elliott is arguably one of the best Western movies actors ever. From Tombstone to Justified, Elliott has done it all. Elliott was also cast in Landman season 2, which gives him yet another chance to move the genre forward.

Landman season 2 doesn’t just let Sam Elliott lead up another Western series created by Taylor Sheridan – they already worked together in 1883 – it also serves as an example of how Westerns have changed in the past decade. In fact, Sam Elliott being in Landman season 2 makes it a perfect way to investigate the way Westerns have changed since 2015.

Sam Elliott’s Landman Role Is A Reminder Of Westerns Moving From Movies To TV

Westerns Used To Be Primarily Films, But Like Elliott, They’ve Found Renewed Popularity On The Small Screen

For decades, Westerns were almost entirely a genre of film. There have always been great television Westerns, from Gunsmoke and Rawhide to Deadwood, but the vast majority of the genre took the form of movies. Just look at the list of the best Western movies of all time. Sam Elliott also started out with Western movies like The Quick and the Dead and Tombstone.

In the past 10 years, however, everything changed. Most of the prominent Western movies of the last decade – like Horizon: An American Saga and Dead for a Dollar – struggled financially and critically. Meanwhile, Sam Elliott has also made his turn to Western television through 1883 and now Landman season 2. The last hit Western movie was (arguably) Django Unchained back in 2012.

Almost all the successful Western stories that have been told since 2015 have been told in a serialized format. Many of Sheridan’s shows, like Yellowstone and 1923, are part of that, but there are plenty of Western shows from the last decade that found huge audiences as well. Just as Sam Elliott started focusing primarily on TV in about 2015, so too did Westerns.

Landman Is Another Example Of How Westerns Have Changed In Tone

Landman Is Dark, Gritty, & A Neo-Western, Unlike The Classic Lighthearted Westerns Of Yesteryear

Sam Elliott’s casting in Landman isn’t just a reminder of how Westerns have changed in format, however, it’s also a reminder of how they’ve changed in substance. The classic Western that dominated Hollywood in the early and middle 20th century was a lighthearted affair. Morals were defined by white and black hats, people died in puffs of smoke, and everything (usually) turned out right in the end.

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The Westerns of the modern day, however, are much darker, grittier, and often not even set in the Old West. Both Revisionist Westerns – ones that highlight the grim, violent reality of the Old West – and neo-Westerns – ones set in the modern day – have gotten much more popular in the past decade. Both subgenres had been around for a while, but they’ve started to dominate Westerns as a whole since 2015.

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Landman is the perfect example of that. It’s set in modern day Texas, features graphic violence, moral ambiguity, and focuses on an anti-hero, and fits perfectly into both the Revisionist and neo-Western categories. And it’s hugely popular; Landman season 1 broke streaming records for Paramount+. Landman is just an example of a wider phenomenon in Westerns: they’re getting darker and more modern.

I honestly can’t name a single Western – movie or show – from the last 10 years that wasn’t either a neo-Western or a Revisionist Western. Even back when Unforgiven and Deadwood were coming out, they still had more upbeat counterparts like Tombstone. Now, however, those subgenres dominate Westerns as a whole, and Landman is the perfect distillation of how the genre has changed.

Landman

7/10

Release Date

November 17, 2024

Writers

Taylor Sheridan, Christian Wallace

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  Billy Bob Thornton

  Tommy Norris

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