IMDb > Badlands (1973)
Badlands
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Badlands (1973) -- MyMovieScripts.com - Trailer (Flash)

Overview

User Rating:
7.9/10   14,539 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 5% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Terrence Malick
Writer:
Terrence Malick (written by)
Contact:
View company contact information for Badlands on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
7 April 1975 (Sweden) more
Tagline:
He was 25 years old. He combed his hair like James Dean. She was 15. She took music lessons and could twirl a baton. For a while they lived together in a tree house. In 1959, she watched while he killed a lot of people. more
Plot:
Dramatization of the Starkweather-Fugate killing spree of the 1950's, in which a teenage girl and her twenty-something boyfriend slaughtered her entire family and several others in the Dakota badlands. full summary | add synopsis
Awards:
Nominated for BAFTA Film Award. Another 3 wins more
NewsDesk:
(14 articles)
What I Watched, What You Watched: Installment #15
 (From Rope Of Silicon. 1 November 2009, 2:16 AM, PST)

The Crow: 15 Years Of Devil's Night
 (From MTV Splash Page. 26 October 2009, 3:44 PM, PDT)

User Comments:
Poetry in motion more (125 total)

Cast

  (Complete credited cast)

Martin Sheen ... Kit

Sissy Spacek ... Holly
Warren Oates ... Father
Ramon Bieri ... Cato
Alan Vint ... Deputy
Gary Littlejohn ... Sheriff
John Carter ... Rich Man
Bryan Montgomery ... Boy
Gail Threlkeld ... Girl
Charles Fitzpatrick ... Clerk
Howard Ragsdale ... Boss
John Womack Jr. ... Trooper
Dona Baldwin ... Maid
Ben Bravo ... Gas attendant
more
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Additional Details

Runtime:
94 min
Country:
USA
Language:
English | Spanish
Color:
Color
Aspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono
Certification:
Singapore:PG | Australia:PG | UK:15 (re-rating) (2008) | UK:18 (video rating) | Australia:M (DVD rating) | New Zealand:R16 | Finland:K-15 (re-rating) (2003) | Finland:K-16 (re-rating) (1987) | Ireland:15 | Norway:15 | Sweden:15 | USA:PG | West Germany:16 | Finland:K-18 (1980) | Portugal:M/16 (DVD rating) | UK:X (original rating)
Filming Locations:
Colorado, USA more

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
Sissy Spacek met her future husband, Jack Fisk, on this film. more
Goofs:
Continuity: At the beginning of the movie, Kit meets Holly after a long day as a garbage man and his white t-shirt is spotless. Kit then asks Holly to take a walk with him, at which point the t-shirt is magically dirty! more
Quotes:
Kit Carruthers: I shot him in the stomach.
Holly Sargis: Is he mad?
Kit Carruthers: He didn't say nothing to me about it.
more
Movie Connections:
Featured in Wanderlust (2006) (TV) more
Soundtrack:
LOVE IS STRANGE more

FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.
12 out of 14 people found the following comment useful.
Poetry in motion, 31 July 2005
8/10
Author: jono-73 from United Kingdom

Terrence Malick's debut feature, an effortlessly cool take on a real-life 1950s case, stars a denim-clad Martin Sheen as rebel without a cause Kit Carruthers. Kit shoots dead the obstinate father of his teenage girlfriend Holly (Sissy Spacek), and the pair go on the run in the bleak - but under Malick's painterly eye, strangely beautiful - Dakota Badlands. Kit kills several more times as the police net closes around them.

With superbly chosen musical accompaniment by Carl Orff, among others, and wonderful cinematography, "Badlands" is firmly rooted in the tradition of the anti-heroic American road movie (thematically related movies that spring to mind include "Bonnie and Clyde", "Vanishing Point", "Sugarland Express", "Thelma and Louise", "Natural Born Killers"). But as ever Malick's poetic vision ensures that his movie thoroughly transcends the genre in which he is working. "Badlands" is simultaneously a celebration of the infinite horizon of the American road, and a chilling depiction of psychopathology in action. Kit wins you over with his considerable charm before it dawns that there is a void in his soul that enables him to kill with impunity. Sheen is outstanding in this iconic role, and Spacek just as good: she's quietly heartbreaking as the immature, fragile girl who is as unable to comprehend the implications of Kit's actions as Kit himself. Her narrative of the events as they unfold is devastatingly naive, unintentionally ironic and disturbingly funny.

Some audiences may find Malick's work cold and dispassionate because he treats the mundane and the extraordinary with the same detachment, but it's a detachment that, for me, signals Malick's passionate engagement with everything that happens, so that every single event is laden with significance, whether it is the movement of a beetle on a stalk of grass, or the killing of a man. Malick does not thereby condone Kit's violence or Holly's passive association with it, but by refraining from prosaic moralising he gives the viewer the space to respond to these characters in his/her own way, thus generating a far more unsettling experience.

A remarkable debut.

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Terrence Malick should sue Oliver Stone LRonCupboard
The Music SarahConnor
Most Disturbing/Haunting Scenes Kennybee
Montana police... doodoobeatz
My Favorite Movie Ever Sleeth1
Holly the Psychopath Kennybee
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