Lone Star is a 1996 American neo-Western mystery film written, edited, and directed by John Sayles. Set in a small town in South Texas, the film deals with a sheriff's (played by Chris Cooper) investigation into the murder of one of his predecessors (Kris Kristofferson) decades earlier. The cast also stars Joe Morton, Elizabeth Peña, Clifton James, Ron Canada, Frances McDormand and Matthew McConaughey.
The film premiered at the 1996 South by Southwest Festival and received widespread critical acclaim, with critics regarding it as a high point of 1990s independent cinema as well as one of Sayles's best films. Sayles's screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award, BAFTA Award, and Golden Globe Award. The film was also nominated for four Independent Spirit Awards, with Elizabeth Peña winning Best Supporting Female.
Lone Star was recognized by the American Film Institute in AFI's 10 Top 10 list in 2008 as a nominated Western Film. The film takes place in a border town (its name Frontera is the Spanish word for "border"), Mercedes is herself an immigrant from Mexico, but over the years has chosen to distance herself from that heritage, choosing to identify as "Spanish" and looking down on other Mexican immigrants.
The moral border between "good people" and "bad people" is likewise complicated, as Sam learns the truth about his father and some of his unsavory dealings. Sam is intent on unraveling the inflated myths that surround Buddy as an upstanding sheriff. Intergenerational borders that divide Sam and Buddy, as well as Otis and Delmore Payne and Mercedes and Pilar Cruz, are eventually bridged as characters learn various truths about their parents and repair the fissures in strained relationships.
Other themes include historical revisionism, mythmaking, and how legends are used to obscure inconvenient truths. The question of who gets to interpret history and why is most evident in the competing stories about Buddy, as well as in the school board meeting scene in which parents and teachers argue over the appropriate version of Texas history to teach high school students. In historical accounts of the Battle of the Alamo, it is often the heroic feats of Anglo figures like Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie that are celebrated, while the contributions of Mexicans, African-Americans, and Native Americans are relegated to the margins. In an essay for The Criterion Channel, Domino Renee Perez writes, "The Alamo, both as a historical site and as a symbol, looms large in Texas mythmaking. But Sayles's film is more about revealing the dark secrets behind, rather than building up, a myth—the myth of Buddy Deeds. Pilar and Sam's resolve to forget represents a turn away from that legacy as they attempt to write their own futures, ones not beholden to any history."
Production
Background
John Sayles decided to make a film about the Texas border after going there in 1978 to shoot a cameo for an earlier film he wrote, and then visiting the Alamo in San Antonio, and coming up with a script that "had elements of a Western, but it was more of a detective story. It was one of those rare instances where I wrote it and we got the money to make it right away."
Casting
Sayles cast newcomer Matthew McConaughey, whose biggest role prior to Lone Star was in Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused, in a major role because "I needed a guy who didn't have any star weight but who had the presence to play off against Kristofferson."
Sayles did not want to film the flashback scenes with visible cuts to the present-day scenes, and instead used pans so the transitions occurred within a single camera shot. An example is the scene where a present-day Sam is seen in the same place in present-day where he and Pilar have just strolled together discussing their past, and where Sam lingers to recollect a scene that took place on the same spot 23 years before between his 15-year-old self and a 14-year old Pilar.
Reception
Box office
Lone Star premiered at South by Southwest on March 14, 1996. It later screened in the Directors' Fortnight section at the Cannes Film Festival on May 10, 1996. It was released in North American theaters on June 21, 1996, and ultimately made $13 million at the box office On Metacritic, it has a score of 79 out of 100 based on reviews from 23 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.
Writing at the time of release, Janet Maslin of The New York Times said, "This long, spare, contemplatively paced film, scored with a wide range of musical styles and given a sun-baked clarity by Stuart Dryburgh's cinematography, is loaded with brief, meaningful encounters... And it features a great deal of fine, thoughtful acting, which can always be counted on in a film by Mr. Sayles". "All the film's characters are flesh and blood", Maslin added, pointing particularly to the portrayals by Kristofferson, Canada, James, Morton and Colón. Film critics Dennis West and Joan M. West of Cineaste praised the psychological aspects of the film, writing, "Lone Star strikingly depicts the personal psychological boundaries that confront many citizens of Frontera as a result of living in such close proximity to the border".
Roger Ebert awarded the film 4 out of 4 stars. His review read, "Lone Star is a great American movie, one of the few to seriously try to regard with open eyes the way we live now. Set in a town that until very recently was rigidly segregated, it shows how Chicanos, blacks, whites and Indians shared a common history, and how they knew one another and dealt with one another in ways that were off the official map. This film is a wonder -- the best work yet by one of our most original and independent filmmakers -- and after it is over, and you begin to think about it, its meanings begin to flower."
Ann Hornaday, then writing for the Austin American-Statesman, declared it "a work of awesome sweep and acute perception", judging it "the most accomplished film of [Sayles'] 17-year career". The Washington Post writer Hal Hinson characterized it as "a carefully crafted, unapologetically literary accomplishment."
In 2004, William Arnold of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer said that the film was "widely regarded as Sayles' masterpiece", declaring that it had "captured the zeitgeist of the '90s as successfully as "Chinatown" did the '70s".
In 2020, Hornaday compiled a list for The Washington Post titled "The 34 Best Political Movies Ever Made", in which she ranked Lone Star at number 10.
In 2024, Lone Star was rereleased in a brand new 4K restoration leading to further critical analysis of the film. Writing in The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw lavished the film with praise, calling it an "overlooked strand of indie movie-making and myth-making in 90s Hollywood, distinct from the brilliant ironies and shocks of Tarantino or the literary noir of the Coen brothers." He gave the film five stars saying "it is thoughtful and complex and grownup."
Accolades
The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay for John Sayles. The film also won the Belgian Grand Prix, and the awards for Best Director and Best Screenplay from the Society of Texas Film Critics Awards. The screenplay was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe Award.
Elizabeth Peña won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female and the BRAVO Award for Outstanding Actress in a Feature Film. The film was nominated for three Independent Spirit Awards: Best Male Lead (Chris Cooper), Best Film, and Best Screenplay.
Home media
In 2023, The Criterion Collection announced they were releasing a 4K digital restoration of Lone Star, supervised by Sayles and cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh. The restoration was released on Blu-ray disc on January 16, 2024. The edition includes a new interview with Dryburgh and a conversation between Sayles and filmmaker Gregory Nava.