Texas Focus Film Series: The Last Picture Show

A group of 1950s high schoolers come of age in a bleak, isolated, atrophied West Texas town that is slowly dying, both economically and culturally.

Released in 1971 to critical acclaim and public controversy, The Last Picture Show garnered eight Academy Award nominations and was hailed as the most important work by a young American director since Citizen Kane. A surprisingly frank, bittersweet drama of social and sexual mores in small-town Texas, the film features a talent-laden cast led by Jeff Bridges (The Mirror Has Two Faces), Cybill Sheperd (TV's "Cybill") and Timothy Bottoms (The Man in the Iron Mask). Cloris Leachman (TV's "The Mary Tyler Moore Show") and Ben Johnson (Rio Grande each won Oscars for their work in supporting roles.