Taylor Sheridan has a certain way of making you feel the grit under your fingernails. When you watch Landman on Paramount+, you can almost smell the crude oil and the stale coffee. The show follows Tommy Norris—played with a weary, sharp-edged brilliance by Billy Bob Thornton—as he navigates the high-stakes world of the Permian Basin. But here’s the thing that’ll mess with your head: even though the show is set deep in the heart of Midland and Odessa, the cameras weren't always where the map says they should be.
Actually, they rarely were.
If you’ve been wondering where was Landman filmed, you aren't alone. Fans have been scouring Google Maps trying to find that specific patch of dirt or that exact dive bar. While the story breathes the air of West Texas, the production actually called North Texas home for most of the shoot. It’s a bit of movie magic, honestly. You take a landscape that looks "close enough" and let the actors do the rest of the heavy lifting.
The Fort Worth Connection: A City Doubling as a Boomtown
Most of the series was shot in and around Fort Worth, Texas. It makes sense. Sheridan basically owns half of North Texas at this point, and his production infrastructure is rooted there. The city offered a perfect mix of urban skyline and rugged outskirts that could pass for the wealthier parts of Midland.
Take the Petroleum Club of Fort Worth, for instance.
In the show, this is where the big money talks. It’s located on the 40th floor of the 777 Main Street building. When you see those sweeping views of a city skyline behind a glass of expensive bourbon, that’s downtown Fort Worth, not the Permian Basin. Another big one is the American Association of Professional Landmen (AAPL) headquarters. It’s a real place in Fort Worth, and the production used it to ground the show in the actual bureaucracy of the oil business.
Then there’s the Hotel Drover in the Stockyards. You might remember Monty (Jon Hamm) and Cami (Demi Moore) attending a swanky event there in episode two. That hotel is a Fort Worth icon. It’s got that "rustic luxury" vibe that screams oil money, even if it's a few hundred miles east of where the story takes place.
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Real Spots You Can Actually Visit
- Cattlemen’s Steak House: Located in the North Fort Worth Stockyards. Fun fact: Taylor Sheridan actually bought this place recently. It shows up in a montage in episode three.
- Don Artemio: This high-end Mexican spot in the Cultural District was used for Monty’s business lunches. It’s a James Beard finalist in real life, so the food is actually as good as it looks on screen.
- Body Machine Fitness: Remember the neon-lit gym where Angela and Ainsley worked out? That’s a real gym on West 7th Street. It’s not just a set; it actually looks like a nightclub in there.
- The Patch Cafe: This one is a bit of a heartbreaker for fans. It looks like a classic roadside haunt in Odessa, but it was actually a set built inside an old, vacant building on Camp Bowie West Boulevard.
Roughnecks and Oil Rigs: Finding the Permian in North Texas
You can't have a show called Landman without some serious dirt. To find the wide-open spaces and the towering derricks, the crew headed just outside the city limits.
A lot of the "field" work happened in Jacksboro, about an hour northwest of Fort Worth. If you saw the hospital scenes (Midland General), you were actually looking at Faith Community Hospital in Jacksboro. They also filmed funeral scenes at a local church there for the second season.
The "man camp" and some of those intense pumping scenes? Those were filmed on a massive set located on the Cleburne Highway, tucked between Weatherford and Cresson. If you drive by today, you might still see the ghosts of the production—an oil derrick or some heavy machinery parked where the roughnecks used to stand.
And that dramatic scene where a plane lands on a private road? That wasn't some remote desert strip. It was filmed in Young County on State Highway 16. They had to shut down the road for two weeks just to get those shots right. It’s that kind of dedication to scale that makes you believe you’re in the middle of nowhere, even if a Starbucks is only twenty minutes away.
Why Not Just Film in Midland?
It's a fair question. Why go to all the trouble of making Fort Worth look like Midland?
Logistics, mostly.
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Filming a massive production like this requires thousands of people, specialized equipment, and massive soundstages. Fort Worth is home to SGS Studios, Taylor Sheridan's 450,000-square-foot production hub. It’s easier to bring the "West Texas vibe" to a studio than it is to move an entire film crew to the actual Permian Basin for six months.
That said, the production did send "second units" to Midland and Odessa to capture establishing shots. You’ll see the Ratliff Stadium in Odessa—famous from Friday Night Lights—because you just can't fake that specific piece of Texas history. But for the day-to-day grind? That’s all North Texas.
Season 2 and the Oklahoma Shift
For the second season, things got even more spread out. While Fort Worth remained the "home base," the crew was spotted in Dallas shutting down Knox Street for some high-end shopping scenes. They also crossed the border into Oklahoma.
Specifically, they filmed at the Choctaw Casino & Resort in Durant.
The production put out a massive casting call for extras to play casino-goers. It suggests that the world of Landman is expanding beyond the oil fields and into the places where that money gets spent—or lost. This shift to Oklahoma is a big move for a show that feels so quintessentially Texan, but it adds a layer of realism. Money doesn't stay in one zip code.
The Human Element: Staying in the Neighborhood
The cast didn't just work in Texas; they lived there. Billy Bob Thornton has been vocal about his love for Fort Worth, even calling it his favorite city in America. He spent a lot of time at Rio Brazos Grill in Weatherford.
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Sam Elliott, who joined the cast for season two, was spotted frequently at Bowie House, an upscale hotel on Camp Bowie Boulevard. When you have stars of that caliber actually hanging out in the local bars and restaurants, it bleeds into the performance. There’s a comfort level, a lack of "Hollywood" artifice that makes the characters feel like they belong in those boots.
What This Means for Your Next Road Trip
If you’re a die-hard fan looking to do a Landman tour, you’re basically looking at a loop of North Texas. Start in the Fort Worth Stockyards for a steak, head over to TCU’s campus (where they filmed track and field scenes), and then take a drive out toward Jacksboro and Weatherford.
You won't find the vast, empty horizons of the true West Texas desert, but you will find the exact streets where Tommy Norris walked.
The reality of filming is often less glamorous than the finished product. It’s long days in the Texas sun, pretending a highway in Young County is a private ranch in Odessa. But that’s the trick, isn't it? To make us believe. By the time the credits roll, it doesn't really matter where the GPS says you are. You’re in Tommy’s world, and in that world, the oil is always flowing and the stakes are always life or death.
To get the most out of your "Landman" experience, check out the Fort Worth Stockyards during the twice-daily cattle drive—it’s the closest you’ll get to the show’s raw energy without actually stepping onto a set. Then, grab a table at Cattlemen’s and order a steak. Just don't expect to see Billy Bob Thornton fixing any oil leaks at the table next to you.
Next Steps for Fans:
- Visit the Locations: Head to Sundance Square in Fort Worth to see the exact spot where Monty makes his power moves.
- Stream Season 2: Catch the latest episodes on Paramount+ to see the new Oklahoma and Dallas locations in action.
- Explore the Real Story: Listen to the Boomtown podcast by Texas Monthly, which served as the original inspiration for the series.