Tulsa King vs Landman: critics and IMDb voters crown different winners in Sheridan's heavyweight matchup
Taylor Sheridan has two kings on Paramount+: Sylvester Stallone's mobster in Oklahoma and Billy Bob Thornton's oilman in West Texas. Ask the critics who wins and you get one answer. Ask IMDb and you get the other.
Tulsa King is back for season 4 right now, dropping a new episode every Friday on Paramount+ through December 18, while Landman is between seasons and won't return before 2027. On paper, they're the same pitch: a Sheridan-created show built around a screen legend past 70 doing crime-adjacent business in the middle of the country. Sylvester Stallone plays a New York capo exiled to Tulsa. Billy Bob Thornton plays an oil company fixer in the Permian Basin.
Put their scores side by side, though, and the two audiences that rate TV for a living and for fun pick different winners. Neither margin is a blowout.
What the critics say
Rotten Tomatoes is where Stallone's show pulls ahead, per Forbes and the show pages:
- Tulsa King: 78% for season 1, a perfect 100% for season 2, then 83% for both season 3 and the new season 4. The series average is 86%.
- Landman: 78% for season 1 and 83% for season 2, per Rotten Tomatoes, for a series average of 80%. Metacritic is cooler on it, at 60 and 66.
Tulsa King's high marks come with an asterisk: seasons 2 through 4 each have only five or six reviews, while season 1 had 46. Still, a six-point lead is a lead. Forbes' Paul Tassi ranks Tulsa King fourth among Sheridan's 11 shows on the Tomatometer, behind 1923, Dutton Ranch and 1883, and Landman sixth, just under Yellowstone.
Season 4 also got a reset in the writers' room. Terence Winter, the Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire veteran, is head writer, and Gretchen Mol joins the main cast.
What IMDb voters say
Flip to IMDb and the order flips with it. Across every rated episode, Landman averages 7.9 and Tulsa King averages 7.8, according to episode data compiled by episodes.cool as of October 25.
That's a photo finish, so the extremes tell you more:
- Landman's best: The season 2 finale, "Tragedy and Flies," sits at 9.3, the highest score either show has.
- Tulsa King's best: Season 1's "Token Joe" is at 8.3. Its top five episodes all come from the first two seasons.
- The worst: Landman's season 2 episode "Forever Is an Instant" bottoms out at 6.9, and Tulsa King's lowest is season 3's "The G and the OG" at 7.0.
Tulsa King is the steadier show, and Landman swings bigger in both directions. IMDb voters, it turns out, will forgive a 6.9 for a 9.3.
Rotten Tomatoes' own audience score sides with Stallone, 75% to 59%. Landman's fan base just happens to live on IMDb, and on Paramount's dashboard.
The number Paramount cares about
Ratings sites aside, there's one scoreboard where it isn't close. Landman season 2's finale drew 14.8 million views in two days, TheWrap reported, the biggest audience Paramount+ has ever had for an original series finale. Its first nine episodes averaged 14.9 million views in their first week, up 58% from season 1.
Don't miss: Dept. Q vs Slow Horses: knockoff or equal? One season settles it
That's the paradox of the matchup. Critics like Tulsa King more, and more people watch Landman. Stallone has the season on the air right now, while Thornton is on hold: Landman season 3 starts filming this fall and runs into early 2027.
So the crown is split. Tulsa King gets the reviews and the Rotten Tomatoes popcorn, and Landman gets IMDb and the bigger audience. Season 4 has until December 18 to make its case before Landman comes back.
Previously we wrote: Where was The Mongoose filmed? Liam Neeson's all-American car chase never touched an American road