Taylor Sheridan's 5 Absolute Favorite Movies (Guess How Many Are Westerns?)

First having started his career off with big and small TV roles, Taylor Sheridan soon moved on to writing, penning Denis Villeneuve’s acclaimed thriller movie Sicario and then expanding the Western genre with a bunch of successful shows of his own.

With his first major hit Yellowstone coming to its end back in 2024, Sheridan still has no time to waste as he keeps several series running at a time, though he might have dedicated some of his evenings to checking out a vast collection of Western movies released throughout decades.

Several of them eventually made it to Sheridan’s top list of favorites, and it seems like the writer does hold expertise in the matter.

Unforgiven (1992)

Starring and directed by Clint Eastwood, Unforgiven is a true cult classic, and Taylor Sheridan is more aware of it than anyone else. The writer-director put it on top of his favorite movies, praising Eastwood’s performance and, what’s even more important, ability to reinvent the entire Western genre by turning it upside down.

Sheridan also reflected on the movie’s storytelling, suggesting that Unforgiven came as a revolutionary new chapter for movie writing, and things haven’t been the same ever since.

In the Heat of the Night (1967)

According to Sheridan, Norman Jewison’s 1967 mystery drama had a huge impact on him not only as a movie fan, but also as a writer.

It’s thanks to the masterfully written script that the film manages to trick its viewer with a crime procedural premise which later on starts diving deep down into other serious matters like loneliness and perception of the time the characters live in.

Due to that, Sheridan himself considers In the Heat of the Night one of the most influential movies in his entire career.

The Insider (1999)

Starring Al Pacino and Russell Crowe, Michael Mann’s biographical drama also came as an eye-opening phenomenon for Sheridan.

The latter recently revealed that The Insider is also one of his favorites thanks to Mann’s filmmaking talent that allowed him to break the rules and keep the viewer on the edge of their seat throughout the entire movie.

Sheridan also took some notes from Mann’s camera techniques that make it all even trickier for the audience and which Sheridan himself calls incredible.

Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)

Robert Benton’s legal drama with Maryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman in the leading roles is also one of Sheridan’s personal top movies.

His admiration goes specifically to the flick’s seemingly simple plot which is actually vocal about the most relevant issues of its time and also allows to explore the characters at a more profound level.

Talking about Kramer vs. Kramer, Sheridan admitted it’s the film with one of the best screenplays he had ever read.

The Godfather (1972) or Platoon (1986)

Yes, it’s hard to pick just 5 forever favorites for Sheridan too. The writer couldn’t choose just one saying that both movies influenced his own career in quite many ways.

Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, in Sheridan’s words, is such a smooth cinematic experience you barely notice that you’re actually dealing with some serious matter in there.

Platoon, in its turn, came as a socially shocking and profound event for 16-year-old Sheridan who watched the movie in a theatre alongside Vietnam vets. The movie completely transforming the entire notion of war films had its own impact on the writer’s future career too.