Sheridan began his career in acting, appearing in small films and in recurring roles in television series like
Veronica Mars,
Walker, Texas Ranger and most notably, as
David Hale in
Sons of Anarchy. He made the transition into screenwriting after he turned 40. His first film as a screenwriter was
Sicario, directed by
Denis Villeneuve. It revolves around Kate Macer (
Emily Blunt), an FBI agent who is enlisted to a government task force to bring down the leader of a powerful and brutal
Mexican drug cartel. It also starred
Josh Brolin and
Benicio del Toro. The film received critical acclaim, with a 92% approval rating on
Rotten Tomatoes, and received a
number of nominations, including a
Writers Guild of America Award nomination for
Best Original Screenplay for Sheridan. Sheridan wrote
Comancheria after
Sicario.
Comancheria sold first but was
stuck in development for quite a few years, appearing on the
Black List survey of most liked screenplays not yet produced in 2012. It was later retitled
Hell or High Water and was released in August 2016, starring
Jeff Bridges,
Chris Pine and
Ben Foster, and again received critical acclaim. For his screenplay, Sheridan received a large amount of awards attention, earning
BAFTA,
Golden Globe Award, and
Academy Award nominations. The low-budget horror film
Vile is credited as Sheridan's first film, but he does not consider the film his directorial debut, stating in a 2017
Rotten Tomatoes interview: His second feature as director, and third as screenwriter,
Wind River, starring
Jeremy Renner and
Elizabeth Olsen, premiered at the
Sundance Film Festival in January 2017. The film follows an FBI agent (Olsen) and a veteran game tracker (Renner) investigating a murder that occurred on a Native American reservation.
The Weinstein Company had acquired the distribution rights during the 2016
Cannes Film Festival, but dropped the film prior to the Sundance premiere. However, the company later finalized its deal to distribute it.
Wind River was widely released in the United States on August 18, 2017, following a brief limited release. Following
Sicario and
Hell or High Water,
Wind River is the third installment of Sheridan's trilogy of "the modern-day American frontier". On September 15, 2016,
Deadline reported that Sheridan had been set by
Sony Pictures and
Escape Artists to script the American remake of the
Matthias Schoenaerts drama-thriller film
Disorder, a 2015 French film directed by
Alice Winocour. Escape Artists' Todd Black, Jason Blumenthal,
Steve Tisch and Tony Shaw were scheduled to produce the remake and David Beaubaire to oversee it for the studio.
James Mangold was going to direct. In 2017, Sheridan created the television series
Yellowstone, starring
Kevin Costner, which aired on
Paramount Network for five seasons running beginning June 20, 2018. Spinoffs include
1883 and
1923 on Paramount+. Sheridan wrote the sequel to
Sicario, titled
Sicario: Day of the Soldado, which was directed by
Stefano Sollima and released in 2018. More recently, his overall deal with ViacomCBS was renewed. In May 2019, it was announced
Warner Bros. Pictures and
New Line Cinema acquired distribution rights to the film
Those Who Wish Me Dead with Sheridan as director. The film had a theatrical debut internationally in South Korea on May 5, 2021. In the United States, it was released on May 14, 2021. Owing partly to the success of the
Yellowstone franchise, Sheridan expanded with the subsequent TV productions
Tulsa King starring
Sylvester Stallone, which has been renewed through season 4, and
Landman starring
Billy Bob Thornton. On June 23, 2025, Paulynne, Inc., which owns and controls all of famed broadcaster
Paul Harvey's intellectual property, sued Paramount Global in New York federal court. The company sued Paramount for using a 90 second audio clip from
The Rest of the Story in
Landman without permission. Paramount used a segment about rising gas prices from Harvey's 2009 "Gas Crisis" episode in the opening of the Season 1 finale. The lawsuit accused Paramount of failing to obtain permission to use the clip as well as editing the clip to change Harvey's viewpoint with regard to government fossil-fuel policies and his interest in alternative fuels. On June 5, 2025, it was announced that
NOLA King, a spin-off series of
Tulsa King, was in the works at Paramount+. The series will be set in
New Orleans and will star
Samuel L. Jackson in a similar role as the one Stallone plays in
Tulsa King. Jackson appeared in the third season of
Tulsa King. On February 24th. 2026, it was reported by
The Hollywood Reporter that Paramount+ had announced that the spinoff was moving away from New Orleans in favor of Texas and the name of the show changed to
Frisco King instead of
NOLA King. In addition, it was announced that Sheridan had been tapped to write all eight episodes of the first season. On October 28, 2025, it was reported that Sheridan had signed a five-year overall deal with
NBCUniversal, which will take effect after his current deals with Paramount expire in March 2026 for film, and 2028 for television. The deal was described as being a "coup" for the company, coming shortly after
Skydance Media completed its acquisition of Paramount; CEO
David Ellison had previously praised Sheridan as being a "singular genius", and had hoped that he would "call Paramount his home for as long as he wants to be telling stories." == Style ==