Landman Review: Taylor Sheridan’s Oil Country Drama on Paramount Plus

Taylor Sheridan’s Landman brings the prolific creator’s formula — rugged American landscapes, morally compromised protagonists, conflicts between tradition and progress — to the West Texas oil fields. Billy Bob Thornton stars as Tommy Norris, a crisis manager for a major oil company who spends his days navigating explosions, lawsuits, cartel threats, and the human wreckage of an industry that makes fortunes and destroys lives in equal measure. It is Sheridan at his most ambitious and, at times, his most excessive.

How We Reviewed: Our evaluation relies on analysis of writing, direction, and ensemble performance and noting how character development serves or undercuts theme. Ratings reflect full-season viewing, critical analysis, and production quality assessment. We do not accept payment or free products from any brand featured here.

Thornton Delivers

Billy Bob Thornton is the reason to watch Landman. Tommy Norris is a man who has survived a brutal divorce, a near-fatal accident, and decades in an industry designed to chew people up, and Thornton plays him with a weary charisma that makes even the show’s most melodramatic moments feel grounded. His delivery of Sheridan’s signature monologues — which range from insightful to overwrought — is impeccable, finding the humanity in speeches that would sound ridiculous coming from a less skilled actor.

Demi Moore plays Tommy’s ex-wife Angela with a sharpness that makes their scenes together electric. Their relationship — equal parts contempt, grudging respect, and unfinished business — is the show’s most fully realized dynamic. Jon Hamm appears as the charming but ruthless oil executive Monty Miller, bringing his considerable screen presence to a role that requires him to be simultaneously likable and villainous.

The Oil World

Landman’s greatest strength is its depiction of the Permian Basin oil boom. The show captures the scale of modern oil extraction — the towering rigs, the vast pipeline networks, the small Texas towns transformed overnight by money and chaos — with a visual grandeur that makes the industry feel both awesome and terrifying. The opening sequence, featuring a catastrophic rig explosion, is one of the most striking cold opens in recent television.

Sheridan, drawing on the “Boomtown” podcast that inspired the series, fills the show with fascinating details about how the oil business actually works. The land deals, the regulatory battles, the environmental consequences, the labor dynamics — Landman treats these elements with the same attention that Yellowstone brings to ranching, and the result is a show that educates while it entertains.

The Sheridan Formula

This is also where the show’s weaknesses emerge. Sheridan’s tendency toward excess — too many subplots, too many monologues, too many beautiful people staring meaningfully at sunsets — is more pronounced here than in his best work. Several storylines feel underdeveloped despite the season’s generous episode count, and the show sometimes prioritizes spectacle over the character development that would make the spectacle meaningful.

The cartel subplot, involving threats to oil operations from Mexican drug organizations, feels particularly underwritten. It provides action sequences and dramatic stakes, but the cartel characters lack the depth that the American characters receive. This imbalance weakens the show’s attempt at moral complexity.

What Works

When Landman focuses on Tommy navigating impossible situations — a rig fire that threatens a school, a legal battle with environmental consequences, a negotiation with a landowner whose property has been destroyed — the show is genuinely compelling. Thornton makes these crisis scenarios feel real, and the supporting cast of roughnecks, lawyers, and company men adds texture to the world.

The family drama also works better than expected. Tommy’s relationship with his adult children, his complicated feelings about Angela, and his tentative connection with a younger woman provide emotional stakes that ground the larger industrial narrative.

Verdict

Landman is an uneven but entertaining addition to the Taylor Sheridan universe. Billy Bob Thornton delivers a magnetic lead performance, the oil industry setting is fascinating, and the show’s best episodes combine industrial spectacle with genuine human drama. It would benefit from tighter writing and fewer subplots, but there is enough here to justify the investment, especially for fans of Sheridan’s brand of American storytelling.

Rating: 7/10

For more Paramount Plus content, see the Paramount Plus Best Shows and Movies Guide and the Best Drama Series Streaming Right Now.