Which season of Deadwood is the best? It's a three-horse race — with a late entry that showed up 13 years after the finale

Season 2 is the most common critical pick, holding 96% on Rotten Tomatoes against season 1's 85% and season 3's 95%. But Deadwood: The Movie scores highest of anything with the show's name on it at 98%, from 89 reviews — the largest sample of the four.

How the four entries score

• Season 1 (2004, 12 episodes) — 85% critics, 96% audience. Wild Bill Hickok's arrival and death, and the finale "Sold Under Sin," which a lot of fans still name as the single best episode.
• Season 2 (2005, 12 episodes) — 96% critics, 97% audience. Opens with the two-part "A Lie Agreed Upon" and the Bullock–Swearengen street brawl, then spends the year turning a camp into a town.
• Season 3 (2006, 12 episodes) — 95% critics, 92% audience. George Hearst (Gerald McRaney) arrives and bends the place to his will. Nothing resolves, because HBO pulled the plug.
• Deadwood: The Movie (2019, 110 minutes) — 98% critics, 80% audience. The widest critic–viewer gap of the set.

The case for season 2

It has the most awards behind it. The show took home a batch of craft Emmys in 2005 for season 2 work — art direction, cinematography, costumes, hairstyling, makeup — after Walter Hill won Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for the pilot the year before. It's also the season where the ensemble stops being introduced and starts operating: Joanie Stubbs runs the Chez Ami, Cy Tolliver develops a private life, and Al Swearengen spends an entire episode passing a kidney stone while running the camp from a sickbed.

The case against season 3

The season is strong and the ending isn't an ending. Rotten Tomatoes' critics consensus puts it plainly:

"Deadwood's final season ends with a frustrating lack of closure."

That's a scheduling problem, not a writing one. HBO offered David Milch a shortened fourth season of six to eight episodes; he declined, two TV movies were promised as a compromise, and one arrived thirteen years later.

Where the movie fits

Deadwood: The Movie premiered May 31, 2019, set in 1889, with nearly the full original cast back — Timothy Olyphant, Ian McShane, Molly Parker, Paula Malcomson, John Hawkes, McRaney. It was nominated for Outstanding Television Movie at the 2019 Emmys. Its 80% audience score is the lowest of the four, which tracks: critics graded a well-made film, and viewers graded whether thirteen years of waiting had been worth it.

For the record: audiences rank the seasons in a different order than critics do. On the Popcornmeter, season 2 (97%) beats season 1 (96%), season 3 (92%), and the movie last.