Lone Star poster & wallpaper

Chandra Wilson, Chris Cooper, Elizabeth Peņa

Two off-duty sergeants from an Army post near the Texas border town of Frontera find skeletal remains and a rusty sheriff's badge on an abandoned rifle range. Frontera's current sheriff, Sam Deeds, so...( read more  read more... )n of the late legendary lawman Buddy Deeds, begins an investigation. Sam quickly learns that the bones are those of the corrupt sheriff his father was reputed to have run out of town, Charley Wade. Sam's hostile relationship with his father had driven him out of Frontera and only since the old man's death has he returned. Now that Mayor Hollis Pogue and the city council plan to name the new courthouse after Buddy Deeds, Sam's old feelings about his father resurface. In the border towns that bridge the Rio Grande, against a tapestry of historical, familial and individual passions, promises and deceptions, Lone Star unfolds.

Flixster Users

83% liked it

6,912 ratings

Critics

92% liked it

38 critics

R, 2 hrs. 18 min.

Directed by: John Sayles

Release Date: June 21, 1996

Invite friends to see

DVD Release Date: November 9, 1999

Stats: 383 reviews

Get movie widget Recommend it Add to Favorites
report incorrect info

Photos

Lone Star Lone Star
Upload a Photo |

View All Lone Star Photos (2)

Your Rating


clear rating
Share on: Facebook Twitter

Flixster Reviews (383)

  • flixsterman
    November 14, 2009
    flixsterman
    Sayles starts off with a plethora of concurrent story lines and flashbacks but manages to tie them all together quite nicely. This film deals with everything from parenting to immigration to racism to mental illness to politics to Texas history... Oh yes, almost forgot, and murd...( read more)er. To maximize your viewing pleasure, limit your interruptions and pay close attention.
  • kiriyamakazou
    September 6, 2009
    kiriyamakazou
    As close to perfect as any true masterpiece can be. Sayles has created one of the most absorbing and engaging character studies ever committed to film. However, this isn't just the story of one or two individuals. It is the story of a community, it's past, it's present and the pr...( read more)esents recollection of the past. Cooper plays a Sheriff that investigates the discovery of a skeleton in the desert. It turns out the skeleton belongs to the most hated sheriff to have ever policed the county. Cooper believes his (now deceased) father, the most beloved sheriff to have ever policed the county, was the murderer. It's a mystery and a romance, as well as an in depth look at the multicultural communities of America. Sayles has sub-plots aplenty, but each one adds another layer to this perfectly scripted film. It has riveting dialogue, subtle emotions and a lot of conflict between parents and children. Lone Star entertains whilst making you think, and the surprises are exactly that. It contains as much detail and plot complexity as any season of The Wire, without seeming rushed or overstuffed. In other words, it stands against the true classics of it's, or any other time.
  • harrycaul
    March 17, 2008
    harrycaul
    You can tell this film's a masterpiece because you can't buy it on DVD in the UK, like Melville's "Le Samourai", Bertolucci's "The Conformist", Altman's "Nashville" and countless others. At its core, "Lone Star" is a touching and tragic love story centred around an archaeological...( read more) murder-mystery, but it's so much more besides. John Sayles lays bare the racial prejudices (white, black and Hispanic), the hypocrisies and the generation-gap squabbles of a Texas border-town community. He also makes us question whether the suspected violent deposition of a corrupt lawman by his deputy--marginally less corrupt but loved by those he protected and served, regardless of their race--might have been an end which justified its means. Beautifully acted all round, especially by Chris Cooper and Elizabeth Pena. Sayles could teach Tarantino a thing or two about how to cherry-pick a great soundtrack; this has one of the best I've heard. A marvellous movie.
  • Julie
    July 16, 2007
    Julie
    John Sayles is a master, and this is one of his finest pieces. Love it.
  • garyX
    April 19, 2007
    garyX
    Brilliant multi-layered, multi-cultural mystery-cum western spanning four decades from John Sayles. Intelligent, dark and expertly performed.
  • mrchewbacca
    November 4, 2009
    mrchewbacca
    Esta y El jardin del eden de maria novaro, son muy buenas en el tema!
  • WitchfulThinking
    October 17, 2009
    WitchfulThinking

    ...( read more)e="width:280px;">


    Lone Star (1996)
    Written and Directed by John Sayles.
    With Kris Kristofferson, Elizabeth Peņa, and Stephen Mendillo.
    Genre: Drama/Mystery.

    Sheriff Sam Deeds (Cooper) follows in his father's wake as the police chief of a quiet border community. When he learns that an old skeleton and lawman's badge have been unearthed outside of town, it appears that they may belong to his father's predecessor, and that his father could also be the dead man's killer. Deeds' investigation leads to the disinterment of some other long-buried secrets that nobody is prepared to face, least of all himself.

    Lone Star starts out looking for all the world like it will be an intriguing mystery. Then it appears to use the mystery premise as a device to tell four tales about love, racial hypocrisy, ethnic bias, the evils of prejudice, etc. -which is to say it seems preachy. It appears to go down the road of being an essay, or survey of controversial issues, and a rather shallow one at that. This made me almost give up on it. I think I have enough judgment to know right from wrong without being continually proselytized by the mass media on these subjects. Did I ever underestimate writer/director John Sayles.

    Lone Star is going somewhere with all of this. Once the aforementioned topics are introduced, the observations made about them are rather sharp. They are representative without being judgmental. Toward the latter part of the film the viewer will start to get an inkling that the writer is making a more important point altogether. Without giving that purpose away, let me make an observation, prefaced by couple of real life examples.

    G. Gordon Liddy in his autobiography Will writes about Gary, Indiana during the 1950's and early''60's. The town had a lot of crime, but most of it was victimless. Vice was heavily regulated, which is to say that it was condoned and controlled in such a way that peripheral crime associated with it was minimized. Everyone made a profit, and most of the residents were allegedly content with how the town was run. Until Bobby Kennedy became Attorney General and interfered, Gary was, according to Liddy, "The little town that worked."

    My other example is the alleged intertwining between the US government and organized crime shockingly illustrated in a book called Double Crossed by Michael Corbitt and Sam Ginacana, nephew to the Chicago crime syndicate boss. Do to fortuitous timing, I had just read both books before seeing Lone Star.

    Lone Star does not turn out to be the politically correct sermon on the evils of racism and class differences that it prima facie appears to be.
    Rather, in the spirit of the two examples above, it explores how the often illicit game of "Let's Make A Deal" transcends such surface boundaries as race, nationality, class issues and the law. Not only is Lone Star about one such "little town that works," it is about the intricacies and machinations of such a transcendence.

    Additionally, the mystery premise that ties the entire piece together turns out to be quite clever and interesting. When the bombshell is dropped on the audience at the end, it is very revealing of real-life operational business principles while it bundles together all of the film's vignettes and themes. It also packs a charged punch in terms of a very heavy revelation that is thrown onto the film's two central characters. This revelation is staggering and emotional without being so on purpose in any sort of manipulative way.

    Lone Star is a thinking man's drama, not in the sense that it is slow, but because it has so much to say, and leaves one a bit stunned with its literary plot ramifications, In other words, it provides the viewer with a lot to think about at once, all of which hits the audience in the last five minutes. The ending is very delightfully perverse, twisted and disturbing. If one is looking for the sensationalism of an action movie, he may think that Lone Star is a slow-paced mystery and give up on it, Lone Star is so much more. It packs all of the tension of an action movie into the cerebral equivalent of a lead slug fired from a shotgun.

    The film steadily creeps along its inexorable path like a burning fuse, lulling the beholder into believing that he holds a sense of insight. The fuse, it turns out, is attached to a cherry bomb in the theater patron's seat which delivers an unexpected and unrivaled kick to the ass.

    Lone Star - trailer
  • ShellyLuca
    October 9, 2009
    ShellyLuca
    Amazing story , screenplay and acting!!!!l
  • jimbotender
    October 9, 2009
    jimbotender
    Lone Star is extremely underrated.Located in Sayles' favorite dimension,a rural county near the border of Mexico-U.S.A.,the film provides us a feisty anatomy of the multiple characters and their well-hidden secrets.Sly and amazingly precise,mistakes of the past are haunting each ...( read more)of our protagonists,with Cooper and Elizabeth Pena giving excellent performances,it's more terrifying than just a simple tale of misconception of events.
  • battleaxeofdoom
    September 13, 2009
    battleaxeofdoom
    Really cool movie, but the pace was a bit too slow.

View All Lone Star Reviews

Critic Reviews

No recent reviews.

View more Lone Star reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

Comments

This board looks lonely. Be the first to talk about "Lone Star" !

Post A Comment | View All Comments

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

All Rotten Tomatoes content is used under license from Rotten Tomatoes. Rotten Tomatoes, Certified Fresh, and the Tomatometer are the trademarks of Incfusion Corporation, d/b/a Rotten Tomatoes, a subsidiary of IGN Entertainment, Inc.

Official Trailer

View Larger Lone Star Trailer

Cast

More Like This

Click a thumb to vote on that suggestion, or add your own suggestions.

  • American Pie
    American Pie (28%)
  • Touch of Evil
    Touch of Evil (25%)
  • Crash
    Crash (20%)
  • The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
    The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (100%)

More Movies like Lone Star

Facts

No facts approved yet. Be the first

Lone Star : Watch Free on TV

Lone Star Trivia

  • which actor plays Lone Star in the movie SPACEBALLS and stars in WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING?  Answer »
  • He was the Lone Ranger, a bad ass in Freaky Friday, won the heart of a Cinderella, and is the star shooting gard on his basketball team.   Answer »
  • Who was Lone Star in Spaceballs?  Answer »
  • In which movie does mel brooks star as president scroobs, darth helmet, and lone starr  Answer »
More Lone Star Trivia

Movie Quizzes

Create a Quiz |

All Quizzes

Video Clips

No video clips yet. Want to upload one?

Meet Other Fans

Add Lone Star to favorites

Recent News

No recent headlines. Got one?

Recent Lists

Make a List |

View All Lists

Most Popular Skin

No skins yet. Interested in creating one?