Since the success of the Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men, the revival of the Western genre has led to masterpiece franchises like

Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone. These projects often explore the modern frontier, translating stories and tropes of the Wild West into the

present day. While everyone has heard of Kevin Costner and the Duttons’ Yellowstone ranch, Australia gave audiences a perfect counterpart.

 

 

It’s no secret that Taylor Sheridan has become the face of the genre, especially through his Yellowstone empire at Paramount. As great as the likes of 1923 and Landman might be, those seeking an alternative can find a perfect franchise with Australia’s Mystery Road. This neo-Western explores equally complex themes with characters fans will love while keeping the genre alive.

When Taylor Sheridan created Yellowstone, it came on the heels of beloved series like Longmire and Justified. However, his series stood apart from its peers, leaning away from the weekly procedural and into the realm of epic family drama and political thriller. Telling the story of John Dutton as he tries to bring his family together to defend his expansive ranch from rivals, it ballooned into a five-year saga. As it took off, Sheridan was even able to deliver period prequels 1883 and 1923, each exploring different generations of the Duttons in the past.

In totality, Yellowstone is a series meant to represent the struggles of modern American frontiersmen, from cattle ranchers to oil drillers. In essence, the franchise tries to give comfortable Americans a window into the dangerous jobs that keep the country running, whether farming or energy.

Over the years, the Yellowstone franchise has delved into the realm of mythologizing and romanticizing its subject matter, crafting a legend of what the American heartland is. It’s this vision that reeled in viewers of all backgrounds and generations, appealing as much to middle-Americans proud of their states as to coastal households curious about states like Montana.

Sheridan’s footprint in the West didn’t begin with Yellowstone, but his so-called “New American Frontier” trilogy. Covering Sicario, Wind River and Hell or High Water, it takes the stories that once dominated the Western genre and makes them relevant to modern struggles. From the strife between America and Mexico surrounding the drug trade to the abandonment of Native American victims of crime, the trilogy established the creator as one of the best writers of his generation.

While people typically associate the Western almost exclusively with the United States, other nations have made their claim on the genre, too. In Australia, this has come in the form of the so-called “meat pie Western,” which delves into the colonization of the nation and the expansion into its unforgiving interior. In 2013, Ivan Sen gave audiences Mystery Road before Sheridan even got started.

A mere two years before Taylor Sheridan kick-started his neo-Western career with Sicario, Ivan Sen gave Australian fans something every bit as great: Mystery Road. Set in a small Outback town in Australia, it focuses on Detective Jay Swan, an Aboriginal cop tasked with investigating the murder of a girl along the town’s “mystery road.”

Part of a national highway that sees truckers passing through on a regular basis, the Mystery Road has seen its share of crime. However, the murder of Julie Mason, an Aboriginal girl, pushes Jay to apply his new detective training to get to the bottom of who killed her.

The first film focuses on Jay as he encounters racism from his local police department, a harsh reminder of the social neglect of the nation’s Aboriginal population. Both the first film and its sequel, Goldstone, serve as an almost perfect parallel to Taylor Sheridan’s Wind River, which likewise focuses on the neglect of Native American populations. Both films move at a similar pace, and the more audiences watch them, they can’t help but suspect that Sheridan’s writing may have even been influenced by the Australian film.

If Mystery Road wasn’t already a great neo-Western thriller, its sequel, Goldstone, proved the franchise had enough legs to turn into a franchise. Upping the ante on the themes of its predecessor, it follows Swan to the small town of Goldstone, situated just beside a corporate mining operation, Furnace Creek, whose influence has corrupted the town. Here, Jay investigates the disappearance of a Chinese girl, who he suspects was trafficked to the Furnace Creek employees in an international crime ring.