Best tv shows like Return to Lonesome Dove
Last updated March 2024
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Plot Summary:
'Captain' Call has just buried Gus at Lonesome Dove and plans to head back to his ranch in Montana. Looking at a herd of wild Mustangs, he decides to drive them north with the help of Isom and Gideon Walker. Gideon hires Agostina Vega and Mexican Cowboys to run the Mustangs. Call leaves the drive for Nebraska and runs into Cherokee Jack and a group of Indians, which almost costs him his life. In Montana, Newt and Jasper get into a shoot out in the local bar and wind up in jail. The odds of them surviving the lynch mob are slim until Dunnegan has them freed. However, Newt and Jasper will have to work for Dunnegan to keep their freedom. Newt has mixed emotions about working for Dunnegan who helps him in any way, because he also has respect for Call - who may or may not be his true father. Dunnegan has big plans for his cattle and the future. Those plans do not include those who do not throw in with him and the Hat Creek Cattle Company is not interested in Dunnegan.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Western
Country: USA
Duration: 322 min
Plot tags: sentimental, atmospheric, epic, serious, captivating, realistic, wild
Best tv shows and movies like Return to Lonesome Dove (1993):
Similar in 84%
Killer Women (2014)
Plot Summary:
Of all the notorious lawmen that ever patrolled the violent frontier, none are more storied than ballsy and badass Molly Parker, one of the first women to join the Texas Rangers.
IMDB Rating: 6.0
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Western
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: exciting, sexy, serious, suspenseful, detective, realistic
Similar in 81%
Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years (1995)
Plot Summary:
"Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years" begins two years after the end of "Lonesome Dove". After two years spent bounty hunting, womanizing, and drinking away the painful memories of his late wife, Hannah, Newt Call returns to town to find many things have changed. His brother-in-law, Austin, is now an alcoholic sheriff, who has never fully recovered from his beloved sister's death, and blames Call for it. His father-in-law, Josiah, is the town mayor, but hasn't been right in the head since Hannah died. The town is run under the iron fist of Clayton Mosby, who also cannot forget Hannah, who looked amazingly like his late wife, Mary. "The Lonesome Dove", the hotel opened in the mini-series by Ida Grayson, now belongs to Amanda Carpenter, a woman with a mysterious past and a determination on par with Clay Mosby's. Curtis Wells also gets a new gunsmith, a mysterious and feisty woman named Mattie Shaw.
IMDB Rating: 7.4
IMDB Votes: 574
Genere: Western
Country: Canada
Duration: 42 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, serious, realistic
Similar in 76%
Alias Smith and Jones (1971)
Plot Summary:
Alias Smith and Jones is an American Western series that originally aired on ABC from 1971 to 1973. It stars Pete Duel as Hannibal Heyes and Ben Murphy as Jedediah "Kid" Curry, a pair of cousin outlaws trying to reform. The governor offers them a conditional amnesty, as he wants to keep the pact under wraps for political reasons. The condition is that they will still be wanted— until the governor can claim they have reformed and warrant clemency.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Western
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: humorous, realistic, semi serious
Similar in 79%
The Virginian (1962)
Plot Summary:
The Virginian is an American Western television series starring James Drury and Doug McClure, which aired on NBC from 1962 to 1971 for a total of 249 episodes. It was a spin-off from a 1958 summer series called Decision. Filmed in color, The Virginian became television's first 90-minute western series. Immensely successful, it ran for nine seasons—television's third longest running western. It follows Bonanza at fourteen seasons and 430 episodes, and Gunsmoke at twenty seasons and 635 episodes.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Western
Country: USA
Duration: 75 min
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic
Similar in 80%
Johnson County War (2002)
Plot Summary:
The three Hammett brothers, Cain (Tom Berenger), Harry (Luke Perry) and Dale (Adam Stroke) are caught in a conflict that escalates rapidly and the old farmers facing against new farmers who have settled in the green grasslands.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 807
Genere: Drama, Western
Country: Germany, USA
Duration: 240 min
Plot tags: exciting, serious, realistic, suspenseful, captivating, epic
Similar in 86%
The Young Riders (1989)
Plot Summary:
The Young Riders was an American Western television series created by Ed Spielman that presents a fictionalized account of a group of young Pony Express riders based at the Sweetwater Station in the Nebraska Territory during the years leading up to the American Civil War. The series premiered on ABC on September 20, 1989 and ran for three seasons until the final episode aired on July 23, 1992.
IMDB Rating: 7.8
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Romance, Western
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: juvenile, exciting, tense, serious, realistic, stylized
Similar in 81%
How the West Was Won (1976)
Plot Summary:
The Saga of the Macahan's.
IMDB Rating: 8.2
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Western
Country: USA
Duration:
Plot tags: atmospheric, vintage, wild, masterpiece
Similar in 84%
Strange Empire (2014)
Plot Summary:
Set in 1869 Alberta-Montana border country, “Strange Empire” is a Western whose heroes are women. With most of their men gone, and those who remain battling for control, the women struggle to survive, to find their independence, and to build a life in which to thrive and raise families.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Western
Country: Canada
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: touching, serious, suspenseful, realistic, period drama
Similar in 85%
Lonesome Dove: The Series (1994)
Plot Summary:
Set in the small western town of Curtis Wells, Lonesome Dove: The Series follows first the romance and later the marriage of Newt Call and Hannah Peale, and the obsession that Clay Mosby, who owns most of the town, has with young Hannah, who looks remarkably like his late wife, Mary. In addition to the talented regular Canadian cast of Scott Bairstow, Christianne Hirt, and Eric McCormack, the show also featured the recurring players of Dennis Weaver as legend Buffalo Bill Cody, Diahann Carroll as innkeeper and widow Ida Grayson, Paul Johansson as newspaperman and family member Austin Peale, and Paul Le Mat as Hannah's father and the editor of the local paper.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 765
Genere: Western
Country: Canada, USA
Duration: 42 min
Plot tags: costume drama, exciting, rough, serious, realistic
Similar in 79%
Heaven with a Gun (1969)
Plot Summary:
Glenn Ford plays Jim Killian, a preacher who arrives in a town divided between cattlemen and sheep herders. But Killian isn't just any preacher. He is a former fast gun who has set upon a different path.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 1000
Genere: Drama, Western
Country: USA
Duration: 101 min
Plot tags: retro, exciting, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, romantic drama
Similar in 83%
Gunslingers (2014)
Plot Summary:
American Heroes Channel's new series Gunslingers reveals the infamous tales of survival and courage from the Wild West. Exposing little-known facts about America’s first villains and heroes, the six-part series features the stories of Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Wild Bill Hickok, John Wesley Hardin and Tom Horn. Juxtaposed with vivid reenactments, expert commentary is layered throughout each episode to ensure the authenticity and historical accuracy of each story. Contributors include: David Milch, the creator of Deadwood; Bob Boze Bell, the executive editor of True West Magazine; and actor Kurt Russell (Tombstone).
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 246
Genere: Drama, Western
Country: USA
Duration:
Plot tags: serious, captivating, realistic, rough
Similar in 87%
The Sacketts (1979)
Plot Summary:
Two part TV adaptation of Louis L'Amour's third novel in the Sackett series. The story follows the three Sackett brothers out west from their Tennessee home. Along the way the oldest, Tell, prospects for gold, while the two younger Orin and Tye herd cattle and later help bring order to a racially divided Santa Fe.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Western
Country: USA
Duration: 240 min
Plot tags: rough, epic, serious, realistic, saga, suspenseful
Similar in 85%
Buffalo Girls (1995)
Plot Summary:
Wild. Untamed. Legendary. In this made-for-tv movie, Buffalo Girls celebrates the bold escapades of tough-talking Calamity Jane Canary and her illustrious cohorts. It's the waning days of the Wild West and Jane, the rough 'n' rugged cowgirl, is searching not only for her long-lost daughter, but the Wild West she once knew. Jane traverses plains, mountains and continents until she finally discovers the answer to her problems: Dora, the vivacious, gold-hearted madam who's been her one true friend all along.
IMDB Rating: 6.5
IMDB Votes: 922
Genere: Drama, Western
Country: USA
Duration: 180 min
Plot tags: realistic, semi serious, exciting, sentimental, rough, suspenseful, historical drama
Similar in 87%
The Son (2017)
Plot Summary:
The multigenerational epic follows two concurrent time periods: One, the story of young Eli McCullough after he is kidnapped and indoctrinated into a tribe of Comanches in 1849. The other, 60 years later, when we see a grown Eli struggle to maintain his family’s cattle empire during the turbulent Bandit Wars of South Texas. Based on Philipp Meyer’s acclaimed novel.
IMDB Rating: 7.5
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Drama, History, Western
Country: USA
Duration: 44 min
Plot tags: tense, rough, captivating, suspenseful, historical drama, neo western, spaghetti western, period drama
Similar in 88%
Bordertown (1989)
Plot Summary:
Bordertown is a television western-drama series that aired from 1989 to 1991. It depicts the town formerly known as Pemmican that was later renamed Bordertown when the western border between the United States and Canada was surveyed in 1880, dividing the town.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 238
Genere: Adventure, Drama, Western
Country: France, Canada, USA
Duration: 30 min
Plot tags: exciting, serious, realistic
Similar in 90%
Dead Man's Walk (1996)
Plot Summary:
Dead man's Walk is the beginning of the Lonesome Dove Saga. Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call are just starting out in the Texas Rangers and have no idea of what they are doing for Call it's Duty above all else. For Gus it's the thrill of adventure. Both men don't know just how much danger and death await for them on their first patrol. Jonny Lee Miller and David Arquitte do a fine job as Gus and Call. Miller in particular carries the movie on his shoulders his portrayal of Call is very good. the rest of the cast is outstanding Keith Carradine deserves special mention for his role as Bigfoot Wallace he adds to the movie greatly. A outstanding movie which adds and enhances the Lonesome Dove saga This is a fantastic beginning to an legendary tale of heroes and incredible story telling.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Western
Country: USA
Duration: 272 min
Plot tags: detective, exciting, sincere, rough, touching, epic, serious, realistic, suspenseful, crying
Similar in 87%
Streets of Laredo (1995)
Plot Summary:
Captain Woodrow Call, now retired from the Rangers, is a bounty hunter. He is hired by an eastern rail baron to track down Joey Garza, a new kind of killer, only a boy, who kills from a distance with a rifle. Joined by his old compadre Pea Eye, it is a long ride to south Texas and the Mexican side of the border, where the past, in the form of Maria Garza, Joey's mother, haunts Call.
IMDB Rating: 7.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Western
Country: USA
Duration: 300 min
Plot tags: serious, exciting, atmospheric, rough, realistic, period drama
Similar in 88%
Texas Rising (2015)
Plot Summary:
A depiction of the rise of Texas from the Battle of the Alamo to San Jacinto. A story told through the lives of the men who gave everything up to defend an infant country from a ruthless Dictator and savage Native Americans, and paved the way for the Republic of Texas to emerge.
IMDB Rating: 6.7
IMDB Votes: 4000
Genere: Drama, History, Western
Country: Mexico, USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: historical drama, serious, captivating, realistic, costume drama, spaghetti western
Similar in 90%
Broken Trail (2006)
Plot Summary:
Broken Trail is a 2006 Western miniseries directed by Walter Hill and starring Robert Duvall and Thomas Haden Church. Written by Alan Geoffrion, who also wrote the novel, the story is about an aging cowboy and his nephew who transport 500 horses from Oregon to Wyoming to sell them to the British Army. Along the way, their simple horse drive is complicated when they rescue five Chinese girls from a slave trader, saving them from a life of prostitution and indentured servitude. Compelled to do the right thing, they take the girls with them as they continue their perilous trek across the frontier, followed by a vicious gang of killers sent by the whorehouse madam who originally paid for the girls.
IMDB Rating: 7.7
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Action, Adventure, Drama, Western
Country: USA, Canada
Duration: 184 min
Plot tags: sincere, serious, captivating, tense, realistic, emotional, epic, wild, post modern
Similar in 85%
Gunsmoke: One Man's Justice (1994)
Plot Summary:
After his mother is killed in a wagoncoach robbery a young man pursues the gang responsible. Matt Dillon goes after him hoping to stop him before the gang can kill him. Dillon is joined by Davis Healy, a businessman, who is hiding a few secrets of his own.
IMDB Rating: 7.0
IMDB Votes: 390
Genere: Drama, Western
Country: USA
Duration: 91 min
Plot tags: exciting, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, cult film
Similar in 87%
Conagher (1991)
Plot Summary:
Mrs. Evie Teale is struggling to stay alive while raising her two children alone on a remote homestead. Conn Conagher is a honest, hardworking cowboy. Their lives are intertwined as they fight the elements, indians, outlaws, and loneliness.
IMDB Rating: 7.2
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Western
Country: USA
Duration: 94 min
Plot tags: tense, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, wild
Similar in 78%
Barquero (1970)
Plot Summary:
Jake Remy leads a gang of outlaw cutthroats making their escape toward Mexico from a successful robbery. Barring their way is a river--crossable only by means of a ferry barge. The barge operator, Travis, refuses to be bullied into providing transport for the gang and escapes across river with most of the local populace--leaving Remy and his gang behind, desperately seeking a way across. A river-wide stand-off begins between the gang and the townspeople, both groups of which have left people on the wrong side of the river.
IMDB Rating: 6.3
IMDB Votes: 2000
Genere: Drama, Western
Country: USA
Duration: 115 min
Plot tags: spaghetti western, rough, serious, realistic, suspenseful, independent film
Similar in 81%
Hell on Wheels (2011)
Plot Summary:
Hell on Wheels tells the epic story of post-Civil War America, focusing on Cullen Bohannon, a Confederate soldier who sets out to exact revenge on the Union soldiers who killed his wife. His journey takes him west to Hell on Wheels, a dangerous, raucous, lawless melting pot of a town that travels with and services the construction of the first transcontinental railroad, an engineering feat unprecedented for its time.
IMDB Rating: 8.3
IMDB Votes: 55000
Genere: Drama, Western
Country: Canada, UK
Duration: 42 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, rough, serious, captivating, suspenseful, historical drama, tense, realistic, stylized, dramatic
Similar in 77%
Comanche Moon (2008)
Plot Summary:
Comanche Moon, the prequel to McMurtry's bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "Lonesome Dove follows Texas Rangers Augustus "Gus" McCrae (Zahn) and Woodrow F. Call (Urban), now in their middle years, as they continue to deal with the ever-increasing tensions of adult life--Gus with his great love, Clara Forsythe (Cardellini), and Call with Maggie Tilton (Banks), the young prostitute who loves him and bears him his son, Newt (Joseph Castanon). Kilmer plays Captain Inish Scull, a Yankee aristocrat and hero of the recently concluded Mexican War. Griffiths plays Inez Scull, the Captain's sexy wife who doesn't hesitate to fill her time with other men when he's away from home. Wes Studi plays Comanche Chief Buffalo Hump.
IMDB Rating: 7.1
IMDB Votes: 3000
Genere: Drama, Western
Country: USA
Duration: 360 min
Plot tags: captivating, tense, suspense, exciting, sincere, detective, rough, bleak, epic, serious
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Into the West (2005)
Plot Summary:
Steven Spielberg executive produced this TNT miniseries about American Westward expansion during the 19th century. Told from both the perspective of the white Wheeler family and the Native American Lakota tribe, the 12-hour epic follows the clans as they struggle to find their place in a country confounded by turmoil and change.
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB Votes: 7000
Genere: Adventure, Drama, Romance, Western
Country: USA
Duration: 552 min
Plot tags: epic, sincere, realistic, atmospheric, serious, educational, historical drama, contemplative, period drama, wild
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Yellowstone (2018)
Plot Summary:
Follow the violent world of the Dutton family, who controls the largest contiguous ranch in the United States. Led by their patriarch John Dutton, the family defends their property against constant attack by land developers, an Indian reservation, and America’s first National Park.
IMDB Rating: 8.7
IMDB Votes: 199000
Genere: Drama, Western
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: scenic, sad, tense, suspense, neo western, suspenseful, atmospheric, rough, bleak, captivating
Similar in 84%
1883 (2021)
Plot Summary:
Follow the Dutton family as they embark on a journey west through the Great Plains toward the last bastion of untamed America. A stark retelling of Western expansion, and an intense study of one family fleeing poverty to seek a better future in America’s promised land — Montana.
IMDB Rating: 8.7
IMDB Votes: 107000
Genere: Drama, Western
Country: USA
Duration: 60 min
Plot tags: historical drama, captivating, suspense, disturbing, psychological, epic, sad, anime, southern gothic, costume drama
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Lonesome Dove (1989)
Plot Summary:
Lonesome Dove is a Western television miniseries based on Larry McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. Starring Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones, Lonesome Dove was originally broadcast by CBS on February 5, 1989, drawing a huge viewing audience, earning numerous awards, and reviving both the television western and the miniseries.
IMDB Rating: 8.7
IMDB Votes: 25000
Genere: Adventure, Drama, Western
Country: USA
Duration: 384 min
Plot tags: epic, touching, realistic, entertaining, anime, sentimental, captivating, contemplative, soap opera, serious
Similar in 79%
The Homesman (2014)
Plot Summary:
When three women living on the edge of the American frontier are driven mad by harsh pioneer life, the task of saving them falls to the pious, independent-minded Mary Bee Cuddy. Transporting the women by covered wagon to Iowa, she soon realizes just how daunting the journey will be, and employs a low-life drifter, George Briggs, to join her. The unlikely pair and the three women head east, where a waiting minister and his wife have offered to take the women in. But the group first must traverse the harsh Nebraska Territories marked by stark beauty, psychological peril and constant threat.
IMDB Rating: 6.6
IMDB Votes: 35000
Genere: Drama, Western
Country: France, USA
Duration: 122 min
Plot tags: atmospheric, tense, bleak, realistic, depressing, harsh, emotional, suspense, serious, road movie
Similar in 80%
True Grit (2010)
Plot Summary:
Following the murder of her father by hired hand Tom Chaney, 14-year-old farm girl Mattie Ross sets out to capture the killer. To aid her, she hires the toughest U.S. Marshal she can find, a man with "true grit," Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn. Mattie insists on accompanying Cogburn, whose drinking, sloth, and generally reprobate character do not augment her faith in him. Against his wishes, she joins him in his trek into the Indian Nations in search of Chaney. They are joined by Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, who wants Chaney for his own purposes. The unlikely trio find danger and adventure on the journey, and each has his or her "grit" tested.
IMDB Rating: 7.6
IMDB Votes: 353000
Genere: Drama, Western
Country: USA
Duration: 110 min
Plot tags: tense, suspense, atmospheric, rough, suspenseful, scenic, visually appealing, serious, captivating, dark