Billy Bob Thornton's 5 Best TV Shows, Ranked

Published Aug 2, 2026, 6:30 PM EDT After joining Screen Rant in January 2025, Guy became a Senior Features Writer in March of the same year, and now specializes in features about classic TV shows. With several years' experience writing for and editing TV, film and music publications, his areas of expertise include a wide range of genres, from comedies, animated series, and crime dramas, to Westerns and political thrillers. Despite previously making a name for himself on the big screen, actor Billy Bob Thornton has spent the past decade as one of TV’s biggest stars. The advent of streaming has seen Thornton apply his inimitable charisma to multiple different television genres, with at least one role written especially with him in mind. As a result, he’s now known to a new generation of fans as both a maverick lawyer and a Texan oil industry fixer. Billy Bob Thornton’s best TV shows stand alongside his movies as major career highlights, and one of them is bringing in an audience that far exceeds the numbers generated by even his most successful movies. Yet, it’s easy to forget that Thornton’s history with television goes way back to the start of his career. The first main character he played was Buck Merrill in Fox’s dark teen drama The Outsiders, which was canceled following its first season in 1990. He might have first gained global recognition as a film star later that same decade, but it’s no longer just movies that define Thornton’s career. Here, we’ll count down the TV series that have redefined his public image since 2014, as well as one that effectively launched him as a household name in the mid-1990s. 5 Hearts Afire 1992–1995 Fronted by Billy Bob Thornton’s future Sling Blade co-star John Ritter, Hearts Afire is a middling political satire of Washington D.C.’s two-party system, which ultimately rests on the chemistry between Ritter and his fellow lead actor Markie Post. Ritter plays a Republican senator’s aide, whereas Post plays a pro-Democrat political reporter. With traditional sitcom production values and a light-hearted take on political differences amid personal attraction, Hearts Afire is an enjoyable if insubstantial comedy series. Billy Bob Thornton is admittedly very funny playing a colleague of Ritter’s protagonist by leaning into his trademark deadpan delivery. Hearts Afire also benefits from an impressive supporting cast. For example, it remains one of Will & Grace star Leslie Jordan’s best TV shows. In addition, features several high-profile cameos from influential figures in D.C., from political commentator Rush Limbaugh to Bill Clinton’s half-brother Roger, and father-in-law Hugh E. Rodham. There’s no question that the sitcom now feels more than a little dated, most visually and in terms of its humor. Nevertheless, it’s responsible for the first screen role that allowed Billy Bob Thornton’s to shine through on a consistent basis. Sling Blade wouldn’t have gotten made if it weren’t for Hearts Afire. 4 1883 2021 In theory, Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone spinoff 1883 has no right to be on this list. Thornton’s whole performance in the miniseries consists of a cameo that total less than five minutes. Yet, that’s still enough time for Thornton to steal the entire episode of 1883 he’s in. He’s a formidable real-life lawman by the name of Jim Courtright, who protects Sam Elliott’s Shea Brennan and his fellow travelers when they rock up in Fort Worth, Dallas. It just so happens that Fort Worth is Sheridan’s hometown, so Courtright was a particularly important character for him to get right in this prequel to his flagship TV Western. Luckily, Billy Bob Thornton was on hand to give the show’s creator a masterclass in understated grit and no-nonsense authority. His delivery of the line, “There’s only one killer in Fort Worth, and that’s me,” is among the best moments of the series. Jim Courtright was a real U.S. marshal who spent three years as Fort Worth’s most feared gunfighter in the late 1870s, before returning in 1883. He was ultimately killed by fellow sharpshooter Luke Short in a duel in 1887. While he’s only a minor character in Yellowstone’s most acclaimed series, Thornton makes his terrifying presence count. 3 Landman 2024–Present The most popular release of Billy Bob Thornton’s 40-year screen career, Landman gives him the opportunity to demonstrate his talents freely. Thornton’s portrayal of oilfield fixer Tommy Norris feels like the culmination of everything that came before it. He’s completely at ease in the role, with a glint in his eye, steely conviction behind his words, and the unerring ability to deliver one-liners like they’ve just come off the top of his head. Of course, it helps that the part was written precisely with him in mind. Taylor Sheridan was right to see the enormous potential in a neo-Western TV show based around the actor. Sheridan doesn’t always deliver his most compelling work as a screenwriter during Landman’s first two seasons, but he can rely on Thornton to captivate viewers for most of each episode, nonetheless. What’s more, fans of the series have plenty more to look forward to in the coming years. Rumors that Thornton is exiting Landman ahead of season 3 have proven to be unfounded, and the show will begin filming again later this month. Tommy’s uneasy partnership with Andy Garcia’s cartel boss Gallino is bound to make for some explosive new storylines. 2 Goliath 2016–2021 One of the best legal dramas of the streaming era, David E. Kelley’s Goliath finds Billy Bob Thornton in his element as a washed-up lawyer struggling with alcoholism who revitalizes his career by representing downtrodden underdogs in legal battles in which the odds are stacked against him. His protagonist Billy McBride is wildly entertaining, but also has more depth to him than any other character Thornton has played. Apart from his dark sense of humor and often shambolic appearance, McBride has a lot in common with the protagonist of Kelley’s subsequent legal drama The Lincoln Lawyer, too. Like Thornton’s character, Mickey Haller is a recovering addict with a personal moral code that supersedes the law, previous family trauma, and a disdain for the American justice system. It’s telling that The Lincoln Lawyer’s lead actor Manuel Garcia Rulfo features in Goliath’s second season, albeit as a very different character. While it might not be quite as thrilling plotwise, this Prime Video series is actually a superior legal drama to its Netflix counterpart starring Rulfo. Goliath is one of procedural television’s all-time great antihero’s journeys, with as much heart to it as anything else Billy Bob Thornton has ever done. 1 Fargo 2014, 2017 Although Thornton gives an exceptional performance as Billy McBride across Goliath’s four seasons, there was only ever going to be one show at the top of this list. The actor’s portrayal of Fargo’s most dangerous character, sadistic assassin Lorne Malvo was pivotal to the initial success of the series. This ambitious adaptation of the legendary Coen Brothers movie needed something special to set it apart from its source material, and Billy Bob Thornton provided exactly what was required and more. His performance makes Malvo one of the all-time great TV villains, a truly horrifying figure who blends No Country for Old Man’s Anton Chigurh with Hannibal Lecter. Even though Thornton’s stint on Fargo only spans 11 episodes, it still inhabits the nightmares of many viewers who first watched it a decade ago. Lorne Malvo’s sadism is conveyed through the actor’s icy, unflinching responses to potential threats, danger, or the sheer brutality of his own character’s actions. Malvo is a psychopath in the truest sense of the word, as he seems utterly incapable of empathy, and quite prepared to inflict the maximum suffering possible on other human beings. Yet, Billy Bob Thornton manages to convey the character’s psychopathic traits with the minimum of fuss, which ends up making his performance even more frightening.