10 Greatest Western Shows Based on Books
Collider has published a listicle spotlighting Western television series that were adapted from novels or short stories, arguing that some of the genre's most memorable small-screen entries began life on the page. The piece, by Senior Author Michael John Petty, frames book-to-screen adaptation as inherently tricky, since television and prose are different storytelling mediums that often require significant changes, and highlights how this practice spans both classic frontier tales and modern neo-Western crime dramas.
Among the entries discussed are the 1978–79 NBC miniseries "Centennial", a 12-part, roughly 26-hour adaptation of James A. Michener's novel about a fictional Colorado town, noted for being largely faithful to its source despite dropping its magazine-writer framing device; "Joe Pickett" (2022–2024), a two-season Paramount+ series based on C. J. Box's ongoing novels about a Wyoming game warden, played by Michael Dorman; and "Justified" (2010–2015), the FX series starring Timothy Olyphant, though the article text provided is cut off before further detail on that entry or the remaining shows in the countdown.
- Collider lists top Western TV shows adapted from novels and short stories.
- Featured entries include "Centennial" (1978), "Joe Pickett" (2022) and "Justified" (2010).
- Article highlights how faithfully each series adapted its source material.