Forget Yellowstone, HBO's 36-Episode Masterpiece Is The Show That Saved Westerns

Published Oct 24, 2026, 8:30 AM EDT

Sean is a senior writer for ScreenRant and has been writing about new TV releases since December 2023. He has received multiple advance screenings of popular shows and ideated his own coverage read by hundreds of thousands of readers.

Sean is a self-published author of a Western novel. Sean has also written award-winning opinion pieces related to local politics while getting his Bachelor's degree in journalism.

Though Taylor Sheridan's Yellowstone is often credited for causing a Western renaissance, it was actually HBO's 36-episode masterpiece that revived the genre in the 21st century. The history of Western film and television has been very cyclical. For nearly half a century, it was the predominant genre in American fiction, up until about the 1970s. Then, Westerns had a revival in the 1990s through movies like Tombstone and Dances with Wolves. That revival proved brief, however, and the Western genre was considered niche once again by the turn of the 21st century.

In the 2020s, Westerns have become almost as popular as they were in the 1960s. Shows like 1883, American Primeval, Dark Winds, The Mandalorian, and more have become huge, and it seems like every streaming service has dipped its toes into the genre. Most of the recent resurgence in Westerns can be traced back to Taylor Sheridan's Yellowstone, which premiered in 2018.

Yellowstone and its spinoff shows became an almost instant hit and cultural sensation. It's hard to overstate how big Yellowstone was, so big that everyone wanted to get in on the Western aesthetics, which kicked off a renewed interest in Westerns. It was a trendsetter through and through, but Yellowstone didn't actually start that trend. Instead, HBO's Deadwood was the Western show that really brought the genre into the 21st century.

Deadwood Revived Western Television A Decade Before Yellowstone

While Yellowstone may have been the show that made Westerns a TV trend in the 2020s, it never would have been possible without Deadwood. In 2004, when Deadwood premiered, Westerns had just come down from a brief revival in the 1990s and were all but destined to return to being a niche genre. The Revisionist Western movement had thoroughly deconstructed and criticized the genre, and movies like Unforgiven felt like a sendoff to the Western's domination of the box office. Western TV was in an even bleaker state, with the last big hits being 1993's The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. and Walker, Texas Ranger.

Then, HBO worked its magic and produced Deadwood. It wasn't a huge hit with audiences at the time, but Deadwood proved to be a critical darling that won several major accolades. It also proved that the Western genre wasn't dead yet, that it still had something left to offer in the 21st century. In the years following Deadwood's ending, shows like Justified, Hell on Wheels, Longmire, and other Westerns became relatively popular for the first time in over a decade.

While the late 2000s and early 2010s weren't exactly the golden age of Westerns, there were a number of rather successful shows and movies that predate Yellowstone. For example, Django: Unchained, No Country for Old Men, and Sons of Anarchy all owe a debt to Deadwood. Even Taylor Sheridan himself owes Deadwood. It's hard to imagine he would have been able to make Hell or High Water if Deadwood hadn't first modernized the Western genres and introduced it to a new generation of viewers.

Without Deadwood, Taylor Sheridan wouldn't have started writing Westerns, the TV landscape wouldn't have had an entire decades' worth of shows to build an audience, and there wouldn't be enough Western fans out there to make Yellowstone the hit that it is. Even if Yellowstone was still a hit, without Deadwood, it would have been the first major Western show in nearly two decades. The fact is that Deadwood revived the Western, while Yellowstone brought it to new heights.

Deadwood Is Still One Of The Greatest Western Shows Of All Time Two Decades Later

Image via MovieStillsDB

The single biggest reason Deadwood managed to bring the Western genre into the 21st century is simply that it's one of the best Western shows ever made and, quite possibly, one of the best TV shows ever in general. A lot has already been said about Deadwood and its quality. It has some of the snappiest writing and dialog of its decade, some of the most colorful and well-portrayed characters in HBO's history, immaculate production quality, and a sprawling sociological story set during one of the most rife moments in American history.

Deadwood is lousy with praiseworthy components. Every episode is dripping with something it executes flawlessly, whether it be an expletive-filled rant from Ian McShane's Al Swearengen or some of the most impressive period-accurate sets, costuming, and design ever put to the small screen. You'd be hard pressed to find anything wrong with Deadwood, which is why it's not just Yellowstone's predecessor, it's also better than Yellowstone.