Synopsis
A Southerner--young, poor, ambitious but uneducated--determines to become something in the world. He decides that the best way to do that is to become a preacher and start up his own church.
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Cast
- Brad DourifHazel Motes
- Dan ShorEnoch Emory
- Amy WrightSabbath Lily
- Harry Dean StantonAsa Hawks
- Mary Nell SantacroceLandlady
- Ned BeattyHoover Shoates
- John HustonGrandfather
- William HickeyPreacher
- J.L. ParkerKarl
- Marvin SappRaymond
Recommendations
- 100
Austin Chronicle
Disturbing and grim in its portraits, Wise Blood is nevertheless marvelous storytelling and its performances are virtually divine. - 100
The Guardian
John Huston's hellfire burlesque is one of the great lost films of the 1970s and a movie to stand alongside his Maltese Falcon or The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. - 90
Time Out
Tragically, desperately funny: this adaptation of Flannery O'Connor's novel is John Huston's best film for many years. - 88
Chicago Reader
This is arguably John Huston's best literary adaptation, and conceivably his very best film. - 83
The A.V. Club
Huston’s tone sometimes feels as conflicted as his protagonist’s, and the overbearing Alex North score doesn’t help. But the decision, possibly helped by the film’s tiny budget, to shoot the novel as a contemporary piece with no period trappings and a minimum of the attendant Southern-gothic clichés pays off beautifully. - 80
Time
Those moviegoers who have a taste for Wise Blood are not going to cavil about flaws. It is enough to ride the wild imaginative waves of this singular artistic adventure - 80
Variety
John Huston, with uncluttered direction and expert handling of actors, has fashioned a disturbing tale of the fringe side of overzealous religious preachers in the deep South. - 80
Empire
Brad Dourif shows he was always great in one of John Huston's better later films.
