Television series

Have Gun - Will Travel

Have Gun - Will Travel gives you a gunslinger who quotes Voltaire and dines on Chateaubriand between jobs. Richard Boone's Paladin is a mercenary with a code, a West Point education, and a business card instead of a badge. Each half-hour is a tight morality play dressed as a shoot-em-up — the show's real trick is making a killer for hire feel like the most thoughtful man in the room.

TVMaze rating7.8

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Gunsmoke1955

CBS's other flagship western, running the same year, trading Paladin's fancy suits for Dodge City dust but sharing the same unhurried, character-first approach to frontier storytelling.

But Its sheer length — twenty seasons — makes it a commitment, and the earliest years feel slower and more formulaic than Have Gun.

Gunsmoke poster

Wanted: Dead or Alive1958no page yet

Steve McQueen as bounty hunter Josh Randall, another gun-for-hire weighing right and wrong case by case, armed with a signature cut-down rifle instead of a calling card.

But Thinner scripts than Paladin gets, and much of the appeal rides on McQueen's screen presence rather than the writing.

Maverick1957

Same network, same year, opposite temperament — Bret Maverick talks his way out of trouble instead of drawing his gun, proving the western could be funny too.

But The comic, needling tone is a real departure if you came to Have Gun for Paladin's gravity and seriousness.

Maverick poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Yojimbo1961

Kurosawa's mercenary swordsman is Paladin's direct archetype — a codeless code, a hired blade who decides case by case who deserves saving — and the film later boomeranged straight back into the western via Sergio Leone's remake.

Toshiro Mifune's wandering ronin sells his sword to whichever side pays best — Paladin's business model transplanted into feudal Japan, where moral flexibility becomes a survival strategy.

But Subtitled and paced by 1961 Japanese cinema's rhythms, not American TV's — it asks for patience Have Gun never demands.

Yojimbo poster
More like this (8)

The Rifleman1958no page yet

Lucas McCain's quick draw and strict personal ethics echo Paladin's, relocated to a small ranch and centered on a father-son bond instead of a hotel suite.

But More sentimental and domestic; it trades away much of the moral ambiguity that makes Paladin's cases interesting.

Bonanza1959

The Ponderosa was the genre's next big swing — colour, hour-long episodes, a whole family of heroes — showing how fast westerns scaled up once Have Gun proved they could be smart.

But Broader and cosier than Paladin's tight, morally shaded stories; the Cartwrights are heroes first, not hired guns.

Bonanza poster

Justified2010

Raylan Givens is Paladin's modern cousin — a lawman with a code, a fast trigger, and dialogue as sharp as his aim, dropped into Kentucky instead of the frontier.

But Long serialized arcs replace Have Gun's self-contained episodes, a different rhythm than case-of-the-week satisfaction.

Justified poster

Deadwood2004

The same wild-west terrain, filtered through profanity, prestige pacing, and a far darker view of frontier commerce and violence.

But Its density and relentless language are a world away from Have Gun's clean, economical half-hour morality tales.

Deadwood poster

The Magnificent Seven1960

Seven guns for hire, each with a private code, banding together for one job — essentially Paladin multiplied and turned loose in Mexico.

But More ensemble adventure than character study, with less of Paladin's interior weighing of who deserves help.

The Magnificent Seven poster

Yellowstone2018

Proof the American western never really left prime time — the same anxieties about land, honor, and violence, just with cell phones and cattle trucks.

But Melodramatic where Paladin was economical, and its soapier pace will feel indulgent next to the original's discipline.

Yellowstone poster

Cowboy Bebop1998

Spike Spiegel is Paladin reincarnated as a space cowboy — the jazz-scored loneliness, the strict personal code, the sense that every job costs something more than it pays.

Swap the gun for a bounty hunter's spaceship and San Francisco for deep space, and you've got the same lonely, philosophical drifter taking jobs one episode at a time.

But It's animated and steeped in anime sensibility — if you need live actors and horses, this will feel like a foreign country.

Cowboy Bebop poster

Shane1953

Shane is the ancestor Paladin's writers were clearly answering — the reluctant gun forced by circumstance and his own code to do the job anyway.

Four years before Paladin rode onto CBS, this quiet, elegiac western gave America its first great mercenary-with-a-conscience — a gunfighter trying to leave violence behind while everyone around him needs exactly that violence.

But Its slow, mythic pacing and lack of episodic momentum will feel like a different genre to anyone used to TV's quicker rhythms.

Shane poster

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Recommended by

Wagon Train, Kung Fu, Rawhide