The Last Picture Show

R

Now Playing

1 hr. 58 min.

Drama

List

98%

116 Reviews

Tomatometer

89%

10,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

High school seniors and best friends, Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) and Duane (Jeff Bridges), live in a dying Texas town. The handsome Duane is dating local beauty, Jacy (Cybill Shepherd), while Sonny is having an affair with the coach's wife, Ruth (Cloris Leachman). As graduation nears, both boys contemplate their futures. While Duane eyes the army and Sonny takes over a local business, each boy struggles to figure out if he can escape this dead-end town and build a better life somewhere else.

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Critics Consensus

Making excellent use of its period and setting, Peter Bogdanovich's small town coming-of-age story is a sad but moving classic filled with impressive performances.

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KB B

I watched this about 30 yrs ago and wasn't impressed and am still not impressed. It had many weird, boring scenes about desperate, hopeless under developed characters thrown together. I need more of a plot than this to care for a movie. I don't understand the glowing reviews.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

04/03/24

Full Review

Danton M

From the desolation of the opening scenes to the hopelessness of the closing scene, The Last Picture Show creates the atmosphere of a time long past. Set in 1951, it still speaks to the efforts of people of all ages to accept or escape their dead-end surroundings. Powerful, memorable, nearly perfect.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/09/24

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john e

I watched "The Last Picture Show" for the first time this evening and was looking forward to seeing this movie that had won so many awards and received overwhelmingly positive critical reviews. I'm very familiar with the writer Larry McMurtry - his "Lonesome Dove "novel and my favorite Western movie/mini series Lonesome Dove. - outstanding! The LD novel and TV miniseries had real, believable characters in rough times, nothing sugar coated there are prostitute/whores, gamblers, rapists, savage half White Indians, but there is an overwhelming sense of honor, friendship, family and respect for Nature. Peter Bogdodovitch's "Paper Moon" is one of my favorite movies set in a bleak place dust bowl Kansas during the Depression - but this movie also had characters of great love and effection - a father daughter pair who absolutely loved each other, though as in Lonesome Dove the father- daughter, father son admission was denied for a very long time I read the reviews of "The Last Picture" show and I understood this film would have a lot of depression and bleakness in a dying Texas down, but I expected the same warmth and good characters the audience could identify and root for. Instead I found probably the most negative, evil presentation of an American town, it's people and extremely sick, hateful, perverted depiction of their lives I have ever seen in any American movie. These people's lives have nothing redeeming about them - everything is about perverted unsatisfying sex designed only to demean the people involve. Truly sick and hateful. I also felt that the extremely beautiful young actress Cybil Shepherd was presented in almost a rape and way as it was starting to be done that way in "Taxi Driver". This movie was sick and extremely hateful, I don't think I could stand to be in the same room with it's hateful director Peter Bogdanovich without quickly starting a fist fight. I note that Peter Bogdanovich was directly involved in the exploitation and violent death of a similar beautiful actress Dorthy Stratton and I sense that Peter Bogdanovich had similar sexual views of our prettiest young girls, young woman as another talented but sick and hateful director Roman Polanski. I guess this movie when it came out in ~ 1971 was considered very "artsy" and gritty real like another Academy Award winning movie about sexual and spiritual American degradation "Midnight Cowboy". Sigh

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

08/28/23

Full Review

John E

If asked to name the top actresses of all time, no doubt the names Streep, Davis (Viola or Bette!), Hepburn, and Blanchett might quickly come to mind. But what about Leachman? Perhaps because she became a bit typecast by her role as Phyllis Lindstrom on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, the extensive library of Cloris Leachman's work isn't usually given the gravitas that it should be. Cloris worked to fully develop every character she would inhabit. She could easily shift gears between musical theater on Broadway to comedic and dramatic work in film and television. She fought not to be pigeonholed to any one particular genre of character or story. Leachman studied under the renowned filmmaker Elia Kazan. One of the techniques she learned, and employed extensively, is the use of objects to convey things about her character. She could have taught a masterclass on this technique. Keep your eyes out for this whenever you next see one of the plethora of her performances! What her body is doing is often equally as important as what she's saying. It should be noted that she was often recognized for her skills by her peers. She holds the record for the 2nd most Emmy Award nominations and wins of any actor (only recently losing the top spot to Julia Louis Dreyfus). She's also an Academy Award winner for Best Supporting Actress. This Award was earned for her portrayal of Ruth Popper in The Last Picture Show. The Last Picture Show is a ground-breaking coming-of-age drama released in 1971. The movie was directed and co-written by Peter Bogdanovich. The story takes place in a small Texas town in the early 1950's. The town is dying the slow death of many small towns of that era, thanks to expanding highways and the growth of metropolitan areas. Bogdanovich chose to film the movie in black-and-white, which only accentuates the bleakness that the film's characters are living through. The central cast are three high school seniors played by Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, and Cybill Shepherd. Though they form the nucleus, this movie is very much an ensemble piece, rounded out by the stellar cast of Ellen Burstyn, Ben Johnson, Eileen Brennan, and Leachman. The Last Picture Show conveys the inevitability of change and the complexity of sexuality in the lives of its primary characters. Each of them searching for some connection, but most are simply just existing… existing in a place that offers little to exist for. Ruth Popper (Leachman) is married to a closeted homosexual (this is never stated but it is clearly insinuated in just about every way possible through the filmmaking of the era). She finds herself seeking fulfillment by entering a sexual relationship with one of the film's central high-school characters. Leachman's performance is tour de force. Ruth has spent many dreary years playing a role society expected, only to find herself hollow and unfulfilled. For a brief moment she experiences more, only to have it torn from her just as she comes to appreciate it. Leachman's final scene was filmed in a single take. Leachman begged Bogdanovich to let her reshoot it, stating she could "do it better". But he refused. He insisted that the performance she gave was perfect as it was. It would seem he was correct since her performance earned her an acting Oscar. It was this acclaimed performance that placed The Last Picture Show on my must-see film list of 2023. This film is gold and holds up remarkably well. There is not a single role that is miscast. And the authenticity of the experiences in the film is boosted by the use of sad country music songs popular to the era of the movie's story. I look forward to revisiting this one again down the road.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

08/23/23

Full Review

favio c

Un drama controversial incluso despues de 50 años.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

08/17/23

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S A

This film was a fantastic, coming-of-age and end-of-age story. The characters illustrate a lot of nuances between dichotomies, such as innocence vs. experience, and different shades of innocence and experience.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

05/13/23

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Peter Bogdanovich

Director

Timothy Bottoms

Sonny Crawford

Jeff Bridges

Duane Jackson

Cybill Shepherd

Jacy Farrow

Ben Johnson

Sam the Lion

Cloris Leachman

Ruth Popper

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The Last Picture Show: Official Clip - Never You Mind, Honey

2:13

The Last Picture Show: Official Clip - Broken Bottle

2:11

The Last Picture Show: Official Clip - The Death of Sam the Lion

2:03

The Last Picture Show: Official Clip - Going to Mexico

2:06

The Last Picture Show: Official Clip - Jacy the Virgin

2:12

The Last Picture Show: Official Clip - Sam the Lion

2:09

The Last Picture Show: Official Clip - School Spirit

2:00

The Last Picture Show: Official Clip - Billy's Bloody Nose

2:00

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Paul D. Zimmerman

Newsweek

The Last Picture Show is a masterpiece. It is not merely the best American movie of a rather dreary year; it is the most impressive work by a young American director since Citizen Kane.

Oct 26, 2023

Full Review

Elston Brooks

Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com

Clearly, the outstanding performance comes from Cloris Leachman, as the dowdy, pathetic coach's wife, who will settle for love -- any kind of love... She is tremendous, and totally unforgettable.

Oct 26, 2023

Full Review

Jan Dawson

Sight & Sound

Bogdanovich, keeping his audience in a suspended state of compassionate amusement, illuminates boredom from within and without and makes it entertaining.

Oct 26, 2023

Full Review

Kathy Fennessy

Video Librarian Magazine

If the sequel is a mixed success, The Last Picture Show, particularly in this restored version, holds up like gangbusters. It's truly one of the finest films ever made about small-town America.

Rated: 4.5/5

Apr 17, 2024

Full Review

Scott Nye

Battleship Pretension

The key arc that all three of its young protagonists – Sonny (Timothy Bottoms), Jacy (Cybill Shepherd), and Duane (Jeff Bridges) – go through is the realization that they have the power to hurt other people.

Nov 28, 2023

Full Review

Matt Brunson

Film Frenzy

An American classic in every sense.

Rated: 4/4

Nov 19, 2023

Full Review

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Synopsis

High school seniors and best friends, Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) and Duane (Jeff Bridges), live in a dying Texas town. The handsome Duane is dating local beauty, Jacy (Cybill Shepherd), while Sonny is having an affair with the coach's wife, Ruth (Cloris Leachman). As graduation nears, both boys contemplate their futures. While Duane eyes the army and Sonny takes over a local business, each boy struggles to figure out if he can escape this dead-end town and build a better life somewhere else.

Director: Peter Bogdanovich
Executive Producer: Bert Schneider
Screenwriter: Peter Bogdanovich, Larry McMurtry, Larry McMurtry
Distributor: Columbia Pictures
Production Co: Columbia Pictures, BBS Productions
Rating: R (Nudity|Language|Sexuality)
Genre: Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Jan 1, 1971, Wide
Release Date (Streaming): May 25, 2010
Sound Mix: Mono

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