An impressionable teenage girl from a dead-end town and her older greaser boyfriend embark on a killing spree in the South Dakota badlands.
Cinematography
Every frame could hang in a museum — golden wheat fields and violence.
Direction
Malick's debut already has his signature: nature as silent witness.
Acting
Sheen's James Dean cosplay is terrifyingly charming; Spacek's voiceover haunts.
Director
Terrence Malick
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Based on real 1958 spree killer Charles Starkweather and his 14-year-old girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate — Malick invented Holly's passivity to make the dynamic more disturbing.
This film basically invented the 'couple on the run' aesthetic that Natural Born Killers, True Romance, and even Bonnie and Clyde (which came first) would later reference — but nobody makes killing look this gorgeous.
US
