Sylvester Stallone Returns To His Best Non-Rocky Role In Just 3 Weeks

Published Sep 24, 2026, 10:00 PM EDT

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Sylvester Stallone is a Hollywood icon, in large part thanks to his breakout role as Rocky Balboa, but 50 years on from that first film, Stallone is set to return to another outstanding role that he has made his own. While Stallone's popularity exploded after 1976 when he first debuted as Rocky, he has been earning credits on the screen since 1969.

In addition to his most famous role, Stallone also became an action icon throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and beyond, and became well known for portraying other memorable characters like John Rambo and Barney Ross, both of which secured major franchises, and a handful of one-off characters that could potentially be revived down the line.

However, in recent years, Stallone's has been absolutely dominating on the small screen in Taylor Sheridan's Tulsa King, where Stallone plays the leading man, Dwight 'The General' Manfredi. And in a few short weeks, Stallone is set to return for the highly anticipated season 4 of this incredible series.

What To Expect From Tulsa King Season 4

As with any Taylor Sheridan project, Tulsa King is drenched in drama, with high tensions throughout the series, and a powerful exploration of crime, moral ambiguity, family legacy drama, and all of this pulled off to a high degree of excellence. But Tulsa King does depart from the core Yellowstone universe of stories that Sheridan has become so widely acclaimed for.

Despite existing outside of the core narratives that spawned Sheridan so much popularity, the narrative in Tulsa King is perhaps one of the most ambitious and intense. Dwight's story began in season 1 with the character being released from prison after 25 years in a cell.

Since then, Dwight has moved to rural Tulsa, Oklahoma, away from the major criminal organizations that became his family in New York, and is attempting to establish a new life for himself despite being exiled by the people who he had been so loyal to. Now, Dwight's efforts to establish himself in Tulsa come under threat as he attempts to legitimize his criminal empire while fighting back against corrupt politicians.

This season also sees Dwight deal with the fallout of the death of his brother, and other major conflicts that arise both in New York, among his old peers, and back home in Tulsa, where the situation for Dwight is getting more precarious than ever.

Tulsa King Finds Sylvester Stallone On Top Form

Steve Swisher / Paramount+

What is deeply impressive about Stallone's turn as Dwight Manfredi is not simply the fact that this role is in many ways his most ambitious, balancing an antihero character who partakes in intense action sequences and dramatic conflict packed with emotion, but the fact that he is performing this part at the ripe old age of 80.

Stallone's career has spanned decades, and he has endured as one of the best and brightest talents to ever come out of Hollywood, but today, with his role in Tulsa King, Stallone continues to shine and prove that just because he is a little older, it doesn't mean he has finished telling stories. His passion for the role, and his capacity to push himself through any challenge all compound to make this one of Stallone's greatest performances and characters of all time.

Evidently, Stallone managed to cement his reputation and earn the opportunity to explore a variety of roles through his work as the writer and star of the original Rocky film, a story which is now being adapted into a film in its own right: I Play Rocky, but his relentless passion proves that his character's will to get back up and keep going was more than just a story; it is the essence of Sylvester Stallone as a performer, and Tulsa King is the proof.

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  Dwight 'The General' Manfredi

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  Martin Starr

  Lawrence 'Bodhi' Geigerman