One of the key American films of the 1970s, The Last Picture Show is set in the early fifties, in the loneliest Texas nowheresville to ever dust up a movie screen.
This aching portrait of a dying West, adapted from Larry McMurtry’s novel, focuses on the daily shuffles of three futureless teens—enigmatic Sonny (Timothy Bottoms), wayward jock Duane (Jeff Bridges), and desperate-to-be-adored rich girl Jacy (Cybill Shepherd)—and the aging lost souls who bump up against them in the night like drifting tumbleweeds.
Featuring evocative black-and-white imagery and profoundly felt performances, this hushed depiction of crumbling American values remains the pivotal work in the career of invaluable film historian and director Peter Bogdanovich.
“Plain and uncondescending in its re-creation of what it means to be a high school athlete, of what a country dance hall is like, of the necking in cars and movie houses, and of the desolation that follows high school graduation.” – Pauline Kael, The New Yorker
