How accurate is Landman? Fact-checking all important parts of the show

Landman debuted its first season comprising 10 episodes between November 17, 2024, and January 12, 2025, on Paramount+. The drama series is the latest offering by Taylor Sheridan, who is renowned for creating shows like Yellowstone, Mayor of Kingstown, and Special Ops: Lioness.

Sheridan co-created the series with Christian Wallace, whose 11-part podcast, Boomtown, served as the inspiration for Landman. Set in the world of oil drilling in West Texas, the series focuses on the life of Tommy Norris, a landman working for the powerful oil tycoon Monty Miller's company M-Tex.

The plot of Landman is fictional, but some of the storylines are rooted in real events taken from the podcast. Furthermore, some events in the series are also dramatized for the purpose of storytelling.

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Christian Wallace sheds light on the accuracy of Landman

On January 9, 2025, Landman's co-creator Christian Wallace told Deadline that the series is "not a documentary," but it reflects the reality of the oil and gas industry closely.

"A lot of it is very accurate. Some of it we had to kind of squeeze together to make it make sense for our characters..... But I think for the most part, it’s safe to say you get a decent sense of what it’s like working in oil and gas out there," he said.

He also discussed the looming presence of drug cartels in West Texas and mentioned that cartels are a "real issue as far as the drug trafficking" is concerned.

"There’s oil theft, there’s equipment theft. It is kind of the wild west in certain ways out there. And so that part is accurate. The relationship between the cartel and (the fictitious oil business) M-Tex is fictional," he added.

While talking about one of the more mature themes from the series, Wallace acknowledged that bikini-clad baristas do exist in the region, as "s*x work is a huge part of any boom town." He also revealed that he interviewed some of these baristas on his podcast, which ran from December 10, 2019, to April 30, 2020.

In episode 5, titled Where is Home, an oil worker gets crushed underneath the pipes, highlighting the dangers faced by these workers in their day-to-day lives. Wallace claimed that his uncle was hit by a pipe rack, like in the show, and he called his wife before passing away.

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What is Landman about?

Landman focuses on the lead character Tommy Norris (Billy Bob Thornton), who works as a fixer and jack-of-all-trades for the oil company, M-Tex. In his daily work, he interacts with blue-collared lawyers, law enforcements officers, workers in the oil rigs, and members of drug cartels that dominate the region of West Texas.

His ex-wife Angela (Ali Larter) returns in his life, complicating events. The couple shares two children, a 17-year-old daughter named Ainsley (Michelle Randolph) and a college dropout son named Cooper (Jacob Lofland).

Cooper is determined to get wealthy like his father's boss, Monty Miller (Jon Hamm). He gets romantically involved with the young widow, Ariana (Paulina Chavez), whose husband worked at one of M-Tex's oil rigs and died in an explosion in episode 1 of the show.

In the season finale, Monty dies from a heart attack, leaving Tommy as the new president of M-Tex.

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All episodes of Landman are available to stream on Paramount+.