The Cowboy’s Guide to Every 'Yellowstone' Spinoff
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Yellowstone is a certified hit, and over its five seasons, the Paramount Network original has racked up millions of viewers, a devoted fanbase (with an active Reddit community) and a number of nominations and wins at award shows—including a Best Actor Golden Globe award for Kevin Costner earlier this year.
The series follows John Dutton, patriarch of the Dutton family, who are also the owners of the largest ranch in Montana. If you haven't seen the main show, think about John Dutton as a more pragmatic version of Succession's Logan Roy (Brian Cox), and running the Dutton Ranch (while thinking about its future as well) is his version of running Waystar-Royco. And just like Logan Roy, John Dutton is always dealing with the comings and goings of his ambitious adult children, in this case being Beth (Kelly Reilly), Kayce (Luke Grimes), and Jamie (Wes Bentley). Characters like Rip (Cole Hauser), Monica (Kelsey Asbille), and Thomas Rainwater (Gil Birmingham) always find their ways into the mix as well. The series features the daily goings on on the ranch, including conflicts with the Broken Rock Indian Reservation, Yellowstone National Park, and other land developers.
The success of Yellowstone has led to a number of spinoffs, and they’re often set in very specific time periods, so as to explore the history of the Dutton family, the land they control, and the lengths they've gone to in order to maintain that control. Part of the charm of these spinoffs is that while the main Yellowstone series (and presumably the upcoming sequel series) is ongoing, the spinoffs seem to have a finite and contained story to tell—keeping the storytelling contained and surprisingly on the rails (which is no offense to the main Yellowstone, but it does get a little out there at times).
To keep all of these shows straight, we’ve created this guide for you to assist your next binge watch. Here’s every Yellowstone spinoff, in order of release.
1883 (2021 - 2022)
The first Yellowstone spinoff is actually a prequel series, and it follows John Dutton's ancestors as they go on the dangerous and arduous journey across the country from Tennessee to Montana, where they eventually formed the Yellowstone Ranch. The cast includes Sam Elliott, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, and Isabel May, and it premiered in 2021. The miniseries is just one season that consists of ten episodes, so it’s an easy watch.
1923 (2023 - )
The second Yellowstone spinoff is also a prequel, this time set in the 1920s—although it was originally going to be set in 1932. This spinoff is also a sequel to 1883, again following the Dutton family, but this time they’re dealing with Prohibition, the end of World War I, and Montana’s Great Depression, which predated the national Great Depression nation by almost a decade. Helen Mirren, Harrison Ford, Jerome Flynn, and Timothy Dalton all play key parts in the series, with Mirren and Ford starring as Dutton family members. 1923 premiered in 2022, and the series is set to run for two seasons consisting of eight episodes each, but filming for the second and last season was delayed due to the writers’ strike, which means the series will likely air sometime in 2024, or even 2025.
Lawmen: Bass Reeves (2023)
November 2023 will see the premiere of this new spinoff. Starring David Oyelowo in the titular role, the series tells the story of real-life marshal and federal peace officer, Bass Reeves, who was one of the first Black deputy U.S. Marshals. Reeves lived from 1838 to 1910, so it’s likely the show will focus on the period of his career around the 1880s. The show was originally going to be intertwined with the events of 1883, but has since been reworked and now will no longer overlap; the only connection is that the show will take place within the same time period, and that Taylor Sheridan is a producer on the project.
Dennis Quaid, Garrett Hedlund, Donald Sutherland, Shea Whigham, and Dale Dickey are among others in the show's impressive cast, and while it’s currently unclear how many seasons the spinoff will run for, the first season will be eight episodes.
6666 (TBD)
Not much is known about the exact storyline of the as-of-now unfilmed 6666 spinoff, but the 6666 Ranch has been featured during season four and five of Yellowstone. A brief synopsis of the show did state that, “The 6666 is synonymous with the merciless endeavor to raise the finest horses and livestock in the world, and ultimately where world-class cowboys are born and made,” as Variety reports. With Jimmy (Jefferson White) from the main Yellowstone series now situated on the 6666 ranch full time, the show could involve his character. It’s likely to be set in present-day, and fun fact: Taylor Sheridan purchased the real-life 6666 ranch in 2021.
1944
This 1923 follow-up will be set in the titular year, but it technically hasn’t been announced by Paramount. However, there have been some hints and reveals about the upcoming spinoff, including when Tom Prince, an executive at 101 Studios, a production studio for Yellowstone, spoke at a town hall in Montana about the series, as TV Guide reports. Since the show is set in 1944, it’s incredibly possible that the show will focus on the end of World War II and how that affected Montana and the ranch.
Untitled Matthew McConaughey-led series (TBD)
Since the Kevin Costner-led Yellowstone will be ending, a new show is going to be taking its place. Currently, we don't know if the new spinoff will take place on the same ranch, use the same characters, or even what time period it'll be set in, but what we do know is that Matthew McConaughey will be the lead.
And if you want to watch the spinoffs in real-life chronological order, here’s your watching guide:
1883
Lawmen: Bass Reeves
1923
1944
Yellowstone (main series)
6666
Untitled Matthew McConaughey-led series
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