Billy Bob Thornton as Tommy Norris in Landman
By
Guy Howie
Published 34 minutes ago
After joining ScreenRant 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.
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Billy Bob Thornton’s role in Taylor Sheridan’s gritty neo-Western drama Landman continues to garner attention, with over 9 million viewers tuning in to watch the first episode of its second season, according to Paramount+. But while the show’s protagonist Tommy Norris is already among his highest-profile roles, Thornton has also impressed in dozens of other TV shows and movies.
Heading the cast of Landman into its second season has likely introduced the actor to a new generation of fans, who might be wondering what else to watch him in. In fact, there are 40 years of performances from Thornton on both the big and small screen to enjoy, across a range of genres.
Most of his best roles have something in common, though. While Thornton himself isn’t fond of his reputation as a Hollywood “bad boy”, it’s clear that plenty of the characters he’s portrayed onscreen have helped to cultivate this image. Among them, there’s a maverick defense attorney, a vengeful victim of domestic abuse, and a subversive Santa Claus.
Particularly in the past decade, many of Billy Bob Thornton’s best movies have been surpassed by his work on the small screen. Landman is just the latest in a succession of standout TV roles, which are now as integral to his legacy as an actor as his performances in theatrical releases.
15 Armageddon
1998
Billy Bob Thornton looking concerned in Armageddon
One of Billy Bob Thornton’s most famous movie appearances came in this apocalyptic blockbuster epic directed by Michael Bay. Armageddon might have been dismantled by nuclear experts for its unrealistic portrayal of attempts to stop a large comet colliding with Earth and ending life as we know it, but it remains among the biggest films of the 1990s.
Thornton plays NASA scientist Dan Truman, whose idea it is to drill into the surface of the comet and detonate a nuclear bomb to break it up. The part is a little out of his comfort zone, but he nails his scene, while ultimately playing second fiddle to Bruce Willis.
14 Tombstone
1993
Billy Bob Thornton looking angry with a bloody lip in Tombstone
Tombstone has defined Billy Bob Thornton’s career, despite his role in the movie being relatively minor. The landmark big-screen Western demonstrated his star potential, by placing him alongside the likes of Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, and Sam Elliott onscreen.
Indeed, his casting in Landman can ultimately be traced back to this film. Thornton depicts a fictionalized version of real-life Old West gambler Johnny Tyler, a secondary antagonist to the Earp brothers played by Russell, Elliot, and Bill Paxton. The part may as well have been written with him in mind, as it fits his screen persona like a glove.
13 Love Actually
2003
Love Actually features a cast that most romcom directors could only dream of, but Billy Bob Thornton is definitely an outlier among this who’s who of British acting royalty. He portrays a fictional version of the U.S. President, who has his eye on the British Prime Minister’s private secretary, as well as a diplomatic agreement between their two countries.
His suave and somewhat aggressive leader of the free world is the ideal counterpoint to Hugh Grant’s bumbling but well-meaning PM. This movie may have its flaws – the treatment of Martine McCutcheon’s character throughout the storyline involving Thornton, for one thing – but it’s rightly become a modern holiday staple that remains endlessly rewatchable.
12 Friday Night Lights
2004
Billy Bob Thornton as Coach Gary Gaines talking to a football player in Friday Night Lights
A couple of years before the TV series took sports drama to new heights, Billy Bob Thornton became everyone’s favorite tough-talking football coach in this likable high school football movie directed by Peter Berg. Friday Night Lights is based on the true story of Permian High School Panthers in Odessa, Texas.
It gets to the essence of smalltown Americana, by depicting an entire city that stakes its identity on a team of adolescent amateurs. Thornton plays the anchor in an intensely human drama, which is worth going back to even after watching the acclaimed TV show that’s since superseded it.
11 Chrystal
2004
Billy Bob Thornton in Crystal
Written and directed by Ray McKinnon, the actor who played Sons of Anarchy’s weirdest character Lincoln Potter, Chrystal is an affecting and deeply personal meditation on atonement. In it, Thornton plays Joe, a husband and father convicted of crimes relating to the car accident that apparently killed his son and paralyzed his wife.
The movie’s title character has stayed married to Joe despite what happened, and he does everything to try and repair their relationship. However, at the same time he becomes embroiled in the criminal past he left behind. Although it’s a difficult watch, Chrystal is an underrated drama that’s worthy of far more attention than it gets.
10 Monster's Ball
2001
One of Halle Berry’s best movies, Monster’s Ball is a searing depiction of the moral complexities around crime, punishment, and the inherited burden of familial guilt. Billy Bob Thornton’s portrayal of hardy prison correction officer Hank Grotowski complements Berry’s of the emotionally unstable Leticia Musgrove brilliantly.
It’s thanks to both actors’ carefully layered performances that the vindictive actions of both characters don’t prevent us from sympathizing with them. While Berry won her Oscar for playing Leticia, Thornton’s Hank missed out on the nomination it deserved.
9 The Apostle
1997
Billy Bob Thornton as the Troublemaker in The Apostle
This moving tale of a Pentecostal preacher in the Deep South who brings together a congregation across racial barriers is among Robert Duvall’s best movies. Yet, it’s relatively unsung compared with the acting legend’s best-known works.
Billy Bob Thornton’s role in the film isn’t a big one, but he’s still a critically important antagonist in the plot. It’s minor scene-stealing parts like this one that helped land Thornton his turn as a Fargo villain, almost two decades later.
8 Landman
2024–Present
Billy Bob Thornton as Tommy looking stoic while standing in an open environment in Landman season 2Emerson Miller/Paramount+
With Billy Bob Thornton sticking with Landman for the foreseeable future, this Taylor Sheridan drama looks set to overcome a mixed reception to the start of its second season. Either way, Thornton’s charismatic screen presence continues to make Tommy Norris one of the defining antiheroes of modern television.
Sheridan seemingly wrote the part with him in mind, and he looks more at home playing it than he has in anything else across his celebrated screen career. In addition to the cowboy swagger and Southern grit he brings to the table, Landman proves just how funny Thornton can be when he wants to.
7 Bad Santa
2003
Billy Bob Thornton and Tony Cox as Willie and Marcus having a drink in Bad Santa
The genius of Bad Santa isn’t just in its attitude to Christmas, but in the freedom it affords Billy Bob Thornton to play a holiday-themed protagonist quite unlike any we’ve seen before. He takes his character’s brief and runs with it, having just as much fun as Will Ferrell has in Elf.
Willie T. Soke is all the more appealing precisely because of how little he cares. But subversive Santa Claus wouldn’t work anywhere near as well if he didn’t feel like a real person. Full credit has to go to Thornton for just how authentic the character feels.
6 A Simple Plan
1998
This gritty crime movie from the 1990s has been shamefully neglected by cinema history. It sees Billy Bob Thornton play the loose cannon in a classic neo-noir plot involving stolen money and a shared secret. His malcontent Jacob Mitchell is the catalyst for the whole thing unraveling, with fatal implications for Jacob himself.
A Simple Plan reunites Thornton with his Tombstone costar Bill Paxton, and places him precisely in the big-screen territory where he most belongs. It’s almost impossible to imagine anyone else playing his role in this movie.
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34 minutes ago
You gotta love Bad Santa.
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