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The Absolute Best Films about Texas
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items As a native Texan expat who has opinions about just about everything, there's nothing I love more than a movie set in Texas that actually engages meaningfully with the wholly unique world that makes up the Lone Star State. Ever since Giant (1956) put...
Few films are as significant in building the visual language of Texas cinema, or for putting Texas on the map as a filming location like Giant (1956), the final onscreen appearance of James Dean, who is joined by era-icons Rock Hudson and Elizabeth T...
Giant (1956)
Set in Dallas over Texas-OU weekend, this parody sequel to the 1974 lowbrow slasher classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre has since gone on to acquire a cult following of its own, thanks, in no small part, to its hilarious pastiche of Texas culture. The fi...
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 (1986)
Houston-born filmmaker Richard Linklater is arguably the most significant Texan director of the late 20th/early 21st century, and all of his Texas-based films serve as love letters to the state. Dazed and Confused is the director's own spin on Americ...
Dazed and Confused (1993)
Peter Bogdanovich's adaptation of Texas writer Larry McMurtry's semi-autobiographical 1966 novel captures a small North Texas town in a state of slow moving collapse, and if you've driven through Texas, you know how those ghost towns have only grown ...
The Last Picture Show (1971)
Set in the fictional town of Virgil, this directorial debut film from Taking Heads frontman David Byrne film was shot in and around DFW, including locations in Allen, McKinney, Mesquite, Midlothian, and Red Oak. A surreal, pop-soundtracked mix of neo...
True Stories (1986)
If you're an artsy kid from Dallas, you grew up loving Bottle Rocket, the film shot around town, starring the Wilson brothers, local boys gone big time. (The film is actually written by Owen Wilson, who met fellow Texan, director Wes Anderson, while ...
Bottle Rocket (1996)
Is this the best movie made about small-town Texas life? Yes. Anyone who has lived that life can attest: the attention-to-detail and super-specific regional references drip from every frame. Texas filmmaker Richard Linklater dramatizes the real-life ... in Carthage, TX (located about half an hour from the Louisiana border with a population just under 7,000), casting several real town members as talking heads in Errol Morris-like fashion. The film delves into the politics of small Texas towns, with m...
Bernie (2011)
Shot by legendary cinematographer James Wong Howe on location in the Texas Panhandle, the film is formally breathtaking and deserves to be better known. It's a dark film about isolation, generational divide, and the collapse of the Texas Cattleman, s...
Hud (1963)
Indie filmmaker John Sayles' beloved 90s' film about Texas—and Texas' specific brand of racism—is one of the most thoughtful films ever made about the state, tackling its complicated multi-cultural legacy with an honesty that's still rare and refresh...
Lone Star (1996)
Mostly shot in Texas—including in Nordheim, Houston, El Paso, Fort Stockton, Galveston, and Marathon—this modern classic from Wim Wenders (shot by the legendary Dutch cinematographer Robby Müller) is a domestic drama about class and the American Sout...
Paris, Texas (1984)
"Now in Russia, they got it mapped out so that everyone pulls for everyone else—that's the theory, anyway. But what I know about is Texas...And down here... you're on your own." So opens the feature film debut of the Coen Bros., which stars Joel Coen...
Blood Simple (1984)
This dramatization of real-life, iconic Texan criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow—who met at a friend's home in West Dallas—was shot partially on the studio lot in California, but most exterior scenes were shot in various Texas locales, includin...
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
If you come from Texas, you know high school football is king. Peter Berg's first adaptation of H.G. Bissinger's iconic 1990 non-fiction book about the Permian High School Panthers of Odessa, TX and Texas High School Football culture is a good first ...
Friday Night Lights (2004)
Filmed at Gilley's, an iconic former country western bar in Pasadena, TX (outside of Houston) that was once the largest honky tonk in the world, this cultural touchstone 80s movie stars John Travolta as an ersatz cowboy who wants to become super good...
Urban Cowboy (1980)
Shot on location in Texas, this unusual crime drama from director Steven Spielberg captures the feeling of driving through the state, where you can go miles and miles (and hours and hours) without seeing anything of note, or you stumble on picturesqu...
The Sugarland Express (1974)
Richard Linklater's debut feature film follows an eclectic mix of weirdos living in Austin—many of whom were friends of Linklater or of the crew—over the course of one day. The film is often credited as being one of the films that kickstarted the bur...
Slacker (1991)
This devastating film from indie king Sean Durkin tells the tragic, real-life story of the Von Erichs, a legendary family of professional wrestlers from Denton, Texas, whose patriarch, Fritz Von Erich, ran the successful World Class Championship Wres...
The Iron Claw (2023)
Pals Quentin Tarantino and (San Antonio born) Robert Rodriguez conceived this underrated omnibus tribute to the exploitation movies of yore, released as one feature consisting of two interconnected films, both of which were shot on location in Austin...
Grindhouse (2007)
Australian filmmaker Bruce Beresford shot this film—about an alcoholic country star who hopes to turn his life around in small town Texas—in Waxahachie, using the area's relatively barren landscape to evoke feelings of isolation and loneliness. He to...
Tender Mercies (1983)
This charming, funny, and quietly moving film from Austin-based mumblecore filmmaker Andrew Bujalski tells the story of a group of women who work in a fictionalized “breastaurant" and is notable for its too-rare sense of compassion for the waitresses...
Support the Girls (2018)