Parents' Guide to

The Last Picture Show

ByBrian Costello,Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 17+

Classic American film has heavy themes and sex.

Movie R 1971 118 minutes
The Last Picture Show Poster Image

一个Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

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age 17+

基于1家长检查

Ian F.
Ian F. 一个dult
January 10, 2019
age 17+

一个dult Themes And Content Abound In This Coming Of Age Drama

I first saw the film when I was about 16, when the appeal it held for me was based on a desire to watch sexy movies. I was old enough to understand the inherent melancholy in the film but young enough to ignore it as well. This isn't an uplifting coming of age story, it's one that paints adulthood as properly complicated and morally grey. The main characters are not particularly endearing and they are motivated by lust, fear, anger, and jealousy. The choice to shoot the film in black and white obscures some of the film's adult content initially as we are taught to believe in the purity of B&W from the classical Hollywood era. The film is frank in depictions of sex and sexual relationships, and there is nudity, onscreen sex (not graphic), and discussions of the same. It's a beautifully stark movie about some very sad people in a very sad little town and it deserves a viewing for those interested in films from this era; films that were very countercultural and anti-establishment by directors experimenting with convention. Ultimately, I wish I had waited longer to see it for the first time. I might have gotten more out of it. Even mature teens would have trouble appreciating this one without getting stuck on the character's sexual proclivities because the film is, at the core, not about that at all.

This title has:

Too much sex
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What's the Story?

It is the fall of 1951 in Anarene, Texas, population 1131. Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) and Duane (Jeff Bridges) are high school seniors and best friends in the process of growing into manhood. Duane is dating Jacy (Cybill Shepherd),在城里最漂亮的女生是谁学习to use her beauty to her advantage. Sonny has always been attracted to Jacy, but between her beauty and her dating Duane, he always felt she was out of reach. In the next year, these three grow up and come to terms with who they are and where they want to go in life as Sonny has an affair with the wife of his coach; Duane loses Jacy to kids from families as wealthy as hers; and Jacy manipulates them both for her own ends. Restless in their stultifying small town, these three characters must decide if they want to inherit the lives they see lived by the older residents around them, or if they want to find something beyond Anarene's city limits.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say(1):
Kids say(1):

Simply put, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW belongs in the top 10 all-time greatest American movies. Set in the early 1950s, the past is evoked through black-and-white film and Hank Williams on the radio. Director Peter Bogdanovich, with an outstanding ensemble cast turning in some of their best work, creates a world that is both rooted in its era and full of universal themes of growing up, growing old, first loves, the restlessness of late teens, the contradictions of middle-age, and the facades people wear in public, in small towns in particular.

The dust storms, the country music on the radio, the nuance and subtlety in the performances all create a mood and production that seems effortless. Rarely in movies do characters seem so real. For aspiring writers and filmmakers,The Last Picture Showis one incredible lesson in how to create a world, a time, and the fully-formed characters who inhabit it.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about how this film captures a year of life in a small Texas town in the early 1950s. How do we understand that time is passing? How is the sense that this town has seen better days conveyed in the film?

  • Why do you think this film was black and white?

  • While set in a very specific time and place -- a small town in Texas in 1951-1952 -- what are some of the more universal problems and desires the characters experience?

Movie Details

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