The Last Picture Show

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The Last Picture Show

R

1971

1h 58m

Drama

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

98%

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115 Reviews

89%

Popcornmeter

10,000+ Ratings

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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Paul D. Zimmerman

Newsweek

10/26/2023

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.

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Elston Brooks

Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com

10/26/2023

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.

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Jan Dawson

Sight & Sound

10/26/2023

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

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Kathy Fennessy

Video Librarian Magazine

04/17/2024

4.5/5

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.

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Scott Nye

Battleship Pretension

11/28/2023

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.

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Matt Brunson

Film Frenzy

11/19/2023

4/4

An American classic in every sense.

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thiago S

@Thiagostone Jun 22

Filme fraco, o roteiro é fraco, as cenas são fracas, a história é fraca, o elenco é fraco, e ninguém ajuda a melhorar o filme, os personagens são fracos, e o filme deveria ter cenas bem melhores e relevantes, para fazer o filme ser bom

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Lorenz L

@Lorenz1060 May 24

Watching this in 2026, I can’t remember having ever seen it, maybe because nothing happens in the two-hour-plus "director’s edition". The music is a grating, non-stop parade of hits from the 1940s/1950s, and way too much Hank Williams. The highly-lauded cinematography is a cipher: Texas is very flat, and there is not much you can do with that in black-and-white for more than 20 minutes. Where it does succeed is lighting its very young trio of stars. Gosh, they were all so young and beautiful … and inexperienced. There is zero chemistry to be found anywhere in this overpopulated experiment, and the jumpy editing and unrelenting close-ups do it no favours. I assume the point of the film was to show the death of small town America, and in that it succeeds within its first 40 minutes, at which point I began checking the clock. After about 90 minutes, the DVD was in the trash can. Did Bogdanovich ever make a truly great film or was he just good when he talked about those made by others?

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Elon Z.

@elonziadi May 2

A very good movie in a dead city.

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Bryan M

@RT97114384 Apr 24

Great cast, good story about a small town and several kids coming of age. Love that they shot it in Black and White. For me it makes it feel more authentic. but I am a sucker for a good old b&w classic film.

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Ketemama B.

@Ketemama Apr 4

It's slow at times, but then some interesting scenes. The real stand outs are Cybill Shepherd (1st acting part) and Ben Johnson.

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Jack F

@MovieFan111 Nov 17

Interesting movie. A rare type of movie with edgy content especially for how old it is. Could NEVER be made today.

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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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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
Producer: Stephen Friedman
Screenwriter: Peter Bogdanovich, Larry McMurtry, Larry McMurtry
Distributor: Columbia Pictures
Production Co: BBS Productions, Columbia Pictures
Rating: R (Nudity|Language|Sexuality)
Genre: Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Jan 1, 1971, Wide
Release Date (Streaming): May 25, 2010
Runtime: 1h 58m
Sound Mix: Mono

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