Badlands (1973)

1973 | Crime | Drama

94 mins

An impressionable teenage girl from a dead-end town and her older greaser boyfriend embark on a killing spree in the South Dakota badlands.



Produced by Warner Bros.
Director Terrence Malick
Writer Terrence Malick
Cast Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek and Warren Oates

Main Image Courtesy: Warner Bros..
Background Image Courtesy: Warner Bros..
Images And Data Courtesy Of: Warner Bros..
This content (including text, images, videos and other media) is published and used in accordance with Fair Use.

Added By

Andy K

Added this item on Jul 29, 2019

Badlands (1973) Reviews & Ratings (4)
9-10
75.0% (3)
7-8
25.0% (1)
5-6
0.0% (0)
3-4
0.0% (0)
1-2
0.0% (0)

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Badlands (1973) reviews from people you don't follow
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Andy K (10823 KP) rated

Jul 29, 2019  
Badlands (1973)
Badlands (1973)
1973 | Crime, Drama
Impressive debut from the legend himself, Terrence Malick
Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek look so young! Probably because they are!

Impressive directorial debut and the start of great things to come. Some of his visual style are already present including impressive landscape shots or cut scenes featuring animals and nature.

The story is based on the American serial killer Charles Starkweather who befriends a naive young girl, invades her life and brings her along on a mass killing road trip across the southern United States. The victims include almost everyone they meet. The authorities are mobilized and pursue the duo as tensions escalate.

Sheen and Spacek are perfectly cast as the young couple which modern audiences would equate to Natural Born Killers; however, this film is not over the top like NBK. I really enjoyed their reluctant relationship and the mounting peril with the inevitable confrontation with the law.

Highly recommended.

(3)   
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Zach Braff recommended (curated)

 
Badlands (1973)
Badlands (1973)
1973 | Crime, Drama

"Malick’s debut! So beautiful. I have the movie poster signed by the cast and the auteur himself."

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Pawel Pawlikowski recommended (curated)

 
Badlands (1973)
Badlands (1973)
1973 | Crime, Drama

"In the mid-seventies I got more into the art of cinema (and into the arts in general), which coincided with a great period in American cinema. I got seriously hooked on Taxi Driver, Badlands, Days of Heaven. These films with alienated heroes, where landscape becomes soul-scape. They made me realize that cinema can be this amazing space where images, words, faces, landscapes, and music all melt together in a mysterious way. Even now, my favorite films are those that take you out of yourself, that make you enter this other world on-screen. These three films did exactly that to me."

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KeithGordan recommended (curated)

 
Badlands (1973)
Badlands (1973)
1973 | Crime, Drama

"If Terry Gilliam was my “wild man” hero in my youth, then Terrence Malick was my poet. Both of these films were textbooks on how films can transcend simple storylines with visual poetry. Both still hold a tremendous amount of power today, and I try to rewatch them at least once a year for a shot of inspiration."

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Badlands (1973) reviews from people you don't follow
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Karim Ainouz recommended (curated)

 
Badlands (1973)
Badlands (1973)
1973 | Crime, Drama

"Badlands is one of those movies that you wish you had made yourself. Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen are incredible, and while the plot is simple, the film is a deep portrait not only of its characters but of a generation. It’s full of mystery, and the use of voice-over is so beautiful. I keep coming back to it before preproduction on my films because there’s something brutally poetic about it that I just adore. It triggers my wish to make things."

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Tommy Chong recommended (curated)

 
Badlands (1973)
Badlands (1973)
1973 | Crime, Drama

"My favorite is still Badlands. It was Charlie Sheen’s dad, Martin Sheen. It was his first movie, I think. Terry Malick is the director; Sissy Spacek, who was a young, 14-year-old girl."

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Juno Temple recommended (curated)

 
Badlands (1973)
Badlands (1973)
1973 | Crime, Drama

"Badlands, I think is one of the best love stories of all time. I think it’s beautifully shot and I think Sissy Spacek’s flawless in it. I watched that movie and — you know when your hair stands up on your body and you can’t control it? — that movie really affected me quite deeply, and I cried at the end. I based a character that I did last year in this movie called Killer Joe on Sissy Spacek in that movie. It’s a big inspiration for me. I think it’s a flawless movie."

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Jeff Nichols recommended (curated)

 
Badlands (1973)
Badlands (1973)
1973 | Crime, Drama

"The first one — I would say Badlands. I caught Badlands in college for the first time. They actually had a film screening of it at my film school. I’d just never seen a film like that before. I’ve never seen a film that was paced that way, that was structured that way, that felt that honest. But also at the same time kind of dreamy and transportive. I remember immediately going home to my dorm room and I called my older brother — who’s kind of my bellwether for cool interesting things — [and asked], “Have you seen this film?” I tried to explain a theme to him, which was nearly impossible of [Martin] Sheen‘s character giving his comb away to the National Guard soldiers at the end of the film. My brother: “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.” You realize that’s kind of how that movie is — you can definitely revel in it and share with it when other people have seen it. But it’s such a beautiful anomaly that when you try and tell people about it that haven’t seen it it’s kind of impossible to categorize or just explain. Badlands — it touched upon a stylized truthfulness that I wanted to do in my film."

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