Yellowstone

Yellowstone (2018–2024) is an American neo-western drama series created by Taylor Sheridan and John Linson. The series follows the Dutton family, led by John Dutton, played by Kevin Costner, who controls the vast Yellowstone Dutton Ranch in Montana. Around him are his children Kayce, Beth and Jamie, along with ranch foreman Rip Wheeler and the cowboys who work the land. The series is built around the constant fight to protect the ranch from developers, political opponents, corporate interests and neighbouring land claims, while also exploring family loyalty, violence, inheritance and the changing mythology of the American West. Yellowstone became the central series in Taylor Sheridan’s modern western universe, leading to several prequels and spin-offs, but its main identity remains tied to the Dutton ranch itself: a place where land is power, family is both weapon and weakness, and survival often depends on how far someone is willing to go.

Yellowstone is set in Montana, and its most important real location is Chief Joseph Ranch near Darby in the Bitterroot Valley. This historic working guest ranch stands in for the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch and provides the series with its most recognisable setting, including the main lodge, porches, yard, barns, corrals, bunkhouse areas, Rip’s cabin, Lee Dutton’s cabin, the armory, fields, woods, cemetery, entrance road and parts of the Bitterroot River property. The ranch sits beneath the Bitterroot Mountains, with Trapper Peak and the surrounding valley giving the series much of its wide-open western atmosphere. Although Chief Joseph Ranch defines the show visually, Yellowstone was not filmed only in Montana. Earlier seasons used a large amount of Utah filming, including areas around Park City, Ogden and Spanish Fork, while later seasons moved more fully into Montana, with locations around Missoula, Hamilton, Helena and the Crow Reservation. The series also uses Texas, especially the real Four Sixes Ranch near Guthrie, for Jimmy’s storyline and the wider cowboy-training world connected to the Yellowstone universe. This gives Yellowstone a broad location identity: Montana provides the mythic centre, Utah supplies many of the earlier ranch, town and mountain settings, and Texas expands the story into a different ranching tradition. Together, these locations create a version of the modern American West built from real ranches, small towns, reservations, mountain valleys, political buildings and working cowboy landscapes.