Paris, Texas

4.75
    Paris, Texas
    1984

    Synopsis

    A man wanders out of the desert not knowing who he is. His brother finds him, and helps to pull his memory back of the life he led before he walked out on his family and disappeared four years earlier.

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    Cast

    • Harry Dean StantonTravis
    • Nastassja KinskiJane
    • Dean StockwellWalt
    • Hunter CarsonHunter
    • Aurore ClémentAnne
    • Bernhard WickiDoctor Ulmer
    • John Lurie'Slater'
    • Jeni Vici'Stretch'
    • Sally Norvell'Nurse Bibs'
    • Socorro ValdezCarmelita

    Recommendations

    • 100

      Chicago Sun-Times

      Then there are the miracles of the performances by Harry Dean Stanton, Nastassja Kinski and Hunter Carson.
    • 100

      The Guardian

      So many mood pieces sustain their mood only as far as the closing credits; the blissful melancholy of Paris, Texas endures with recall and association, however distant from one’s last viewing. Cannes has rewarded many a great film, but none that is quite so permanently, ever-retrievably embedded in my sense memory.
    • 100

      Empire

      Enigmatic and fascinating.
    • 100

      Rolling Stone

      Wim Wenders’ heartbreaking, profoundly American masterpiece...The climactic scene – set in a peep-show booth – features a stunning autographical monologue that’s one of the most mesmerizing pieces of screen acting ever filmed.
    • 100

      TV Guide Magazine

      Superbly scripted, the film features wonderful performances from all its major players. Equally brilliant, especially in a film that emphasizes script and character, is the cinematography by Robby Muller, perfectly capturing the notion of "America." A final factor in PARIS, TEXAS's success is the remarkably haunting score by blues musician Ry Cooder.
    • 90

      Variety

      It’s indeed a beautiful film, one that will surely convince doubters that Muller is one of the cinema’s best cameramen. He gives the story a surface polish that hints of Edward Hopper and Georgia O’Keefe Americana paintings. Some images are positively breathtaking.
    • 88

      Slant Magazine

      Paris, Texas may be missing a crucial piece of authentic Americana, but it still evokes an America most Americans yearn to gaze on. An America as thorny and carnivorous as a hawk talon, as raw and smug as a downtown mural, and as sweetly enigmatic as a vacant lot that doesn’t—that can’t—exist.
    • 80

      Chicago Reader

      Like Wenders's other road movies, this is largely about the spaces between people and the words they speak—Antonioni updated and infused with German romanticism; the various means of indirection through which the hero communicates with his son (Hunter Carson) and wife (Nastassja Kinski) constitute a striking motif.

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