Hell on Wheels

Series Similar to Hell on Wheels

If you enjoyed Hell on Wheels, these series share similar themes, tone, and quality. Each recommendation is scored on genre overlap, tonal match, and critical acclaim.

1. Yellowstone

   2018 · Drama, Western · ended

   Recommended for similar Western profile, highly rated (8.1).

   Yellowstone follows the Dutton family, led by John Dutton, who controls the largest contiguous ranch in the United States, under constant attack by those it borders — land developers, an Indian reservation, and America's first National Park. It is an intense study of a violent world far from media scrutiny — where land grabs make developers billions, and politicians are bought and sold by the world's largest oil and lumber corporations. Where drinking water poisoned by fracking wells and unsolved murders are not news: they are a consequence of living in the new frontier. It is the best and worst of America seen through the eyes of a family that represents both.

2. American Primeval

   2025 · Drama, Action, Western · ended

   Recommended for similar Action / Western profile.

   A raw, adventurous exploration of the birth of the American West. The violent collisions of cultures, religions and communities as men and women fight and die for control of this new world – for a land they truly believe is their destiny. The ensemble tells a story of the sacrifice all must pay when they choose to enter a lawless and untamed wilderness.

3. Lawmen: Bass Reeves

   2023 · Drama, Crime, Western · ended

   Recommended for similar Western profile.

   Bass Reeves was known as the greatest frontier hero in American history and also believed to be the inspiration for "The Lone Ranger". He worked in the post-Reconstruction era as a federal peace officer in the Indian Territory, capturing over 3,000 of the most dangerous criminals without ever being wounded.

4. Strange Empire

   2014 · Drama, Western · ended

   Recommended for similar Western profile, hidden gem.

   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. As the stories of Janestown's citizens unfold we see the clash between a power-hungry father and son and the deep prejudices among races, but also the start of something akin to community in this Wild West. Western stories take civilization as a goal; they begin in blood, and end in the morality of Main Street.

5. Spartacus: Gods of the Arena

   2011 · Drama, Action, History · ended

   Recommended for similar Action profile, highly rated (8.4).

   The mini-series features the bloody history of the House of Batiatus and the city of Capua before the arrival of Spartacus. Quintus Lentulus Batiatus becomes a lanista (manager) when he takes over his father's ludus of gladiators. He has ambitions of stepping out of his father's shadow by seeking recognition for his own name and achieving further greatness for his house. By his side stands his beautiful wife Lucretia who will help her husband achieve his ambitions, whatever the cost. Batiatus puts all his fortunes on the man who will gain him fame and glory. That would be his best gladiator, the Celt, Gannicus, a skilled warrior who wields dual swords with deadly purpose. Those who oppose Batiatus and his future champion(s) of Capua do so at their own peril.Purchased as an undisciplined and disheveled recruit in the first episode, Crixus the Gaul endures mockery and threats of death to become the champion after Gannicus. As Batiatus fends off repeated attempts by his professional rival Tullius to obtain Gannicus, his relationships with his father Titus and friend Solonius begin to suffer the strain of his relentless ambition. Former champion, Oenomaus, reluctantly becomes Doctore, while Syrian recruits Ashur and Dagan try to prove themselves worthy of being gladiators. Veteran gladiators Barca and Gannicus note the rising star of Crixus, as the machinations of Batiatus and Lucretia end in tragedy for several members of the household. Against all of this, the city's splendid new arena nears completion and with it the opening games that will make slaves into gods. When the arena opens, Batiatus' gladiators prevail in the contest. Gannicus again proves himself to be the champion of Capua and a god of the arena. By virtue of his win against Solonius' gladiators, he gains his freedom and Crixus becomes the new champion.

6. Godless

   2017 · Drama, Western · ended

   Recommended for similar Western profile, highly rated (8).

   A ruthless outlaw terrorizes the West in search of a former member of his gang, who's found a new life in a quiet town populated only by women.

7. Hatfields & McCoys

   2012 · Drama, Romance, Western · ended

   Recommended for similar Western profile.

   The Hatfield-McCoy saga begins with 'Devil' Anse Hatfield (Costner) and Randall McCoy (Paxton). Close friends and comrades during the Civil War, they returned to their neighboring homes - Hatfield in West Virginia, McCoy just across the Tug River border in Kentucky - to increasing tensions, misunderstandings and resentments that soon exploded into all-out warfare between the two families. As hostilities grew, friends, neighbors and outside forces joined the fight, bringing the two states to the brink of another Civil War.

8. Justified

   2010 · Drama, Crime, Western · ended

   Recommended for similar Western profile, highly rated (8.7).

   Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens is something of a 19th century-style officer in modern times, whose unconventional enforcement of justice makes him a target with criminals and a problem for his superiors in the U.S. Marshals Service. As a result of an eager but "justified" shooting of a Miami fugitive while on assignment in Florida, Givens is reassigned to Lexington, Kentucky, in a district that includes his hometown of Harlan, a rural mining town in the east of the state.

9. 1883

   2021 · Drama, Adventure, Western · ended

   Recommended for similar Western profile, highly rated (8.8).

   1883 follows the Dutton family as they embark on a journey west through the Great Plains toward the last bastion of untamed America. It is 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.

10. 1923

    2022 · Drama, Western · ended

    Recommended for similar Western profile, highly rated (8.1).

    1923 focuses on the Dutton family's next two generations as they struggle to survive historic drought, lawlessness and prohibition, and an epidemic of cattle theft; all battled beneath the cloud of Montana's great depression, which preceded the nation by almost a decade.