Paris, Texas (1984)
95%RT Audience Score: 93%
Awards & Nominations: Won 1 BAFTA Film Award
18 wins & 12 nominations total
A quiet yet deeply moving kind of Western, Paris, Texas captures a place and people like never before (or after).
Paris, Texas” is a movie that will make you feel like you’re on a road trip with your weird uncle who doesn’t talk much but has a lot of feelings. The cinematography is stunning, and you’ll find yourself wanting to pack up your bags and move to the desert. Harry Dean Stanton’s performance is so good, you’ll forget he’s acting and start to wonder if he’s just a real-life drifter they found on the side of the road. Overall, it’s a beautiful and haunting film that will stick with you long after the credits roll.
Production Company(ies)
Road Movies Filmproduktion, Argos Films, Westdeutscher Rundfunk
Distributor
20th Century Fox
Release Type
Theatrical
Filming Location(s)
Marathon Motel & RV Park – Highway 90, Marathon, Texas, USA
MPAA / Certificate
R
Year of Release
1984
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Color:Color
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Sound mix:Dolby
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Aspect ratio:NA
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Runtime:2h 28m
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Language(s):English, Spanish
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Country of origin:United States
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Release date:Release Date (Theaters): Nov 18, 1984 Original
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 26, 2010
Genre(s)
Drama
Keyword(s)
Worldwide gross: $2,207,548
Worldwide gross (inflation-adjusted): $6,464,426
Worldwide gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): 2,099
Worldwide tickets sold (est.): 704,954
US/Canada gross: $2,181,987
US/Canada gross (inflation-adjusted): NA
US/Canada gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): NA
US/Canada opening weekend:
US/Canada opening weekend (inflation-adjusted): NA
US/Canada opening weekend ranking (inflation-adjusted): NA
Budget and Earnings Details
Production budget (est.): £1,162,000
Production budget (inflation-adjusted): NA
Production budget ranking: NA
Marketing and distribution budget (inflation-adjusted est.): NA
Box office net earnings to date (inflation-adjusted est.): NA
ROI to date (est.): NA
ROI ranking: NA
– Harry Dean Stanton – Travis
– Nastassja Kinski – Jane
– Dean Stockwell – Walt
– Aurore Clément – Anne Henderson
– Hunter Carson – Hunter
– Bernhard Wicki – Doctor Ulmer
– Director: Wim Wenders
– Producer: Don Guest, Anatole Dauman
– Writer: L.M. Kit Carson, Sam Shepard
– Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Director(s)
Wim Wenders
Writer(s)
L.M. Kit Carson, Sam Shepard
Producer(s)
Don Guest, Anatole Dauman
Film Festivals
Berlin, Cannes
Awards & Nominations
Won 1 BAFTA Film Award
18 wins & 12 nominations total
Academy Awards
All Critics (49) | Top Critics (13) | Fresh (46) | Rotten (3)
It’s a striking, gripping film for most of its length, with Wenders and cinematographer Robby Muller showing a great love of and fascination for the land — almost as if their European upbringings had made them slightly envious of the wide-open spaces.
October 7, 2021
Joe Pollack
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
TOP CRITIC
It is clear-eyed and unsparing, and full of the price our way of life extracts from those who can least afford it emotionally.
October 7, 2021 | Rating: 3/4
Desmond Ryan
Philadelphia Inquirer
TOP CRITIC
The movie belongs to Stanton, of course, and it’s hard to think of any other actor who can go from Chaplinlike outcast to tragic hero in the space of a feature film.
October 7, 2021
Marsha McCreadie
Arizona Republic
TOP CRITIC
It would be worth seeing for Stanton’s performance alone.
October 7, 2021 | Rating: 2.5/4
Bill Cosford
Miami Herald
TOP CRITIC
A rewarding story of distance, separation and ultimately, of renewed chances.
October 7, 2021 | Rating: 4/4
Anne Marie Biondo
Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
TOP CRITIC
“Paris, Texas,” despite its history of last-minute rewrites, is unsentimental adult entertainment.
October 7, 2021 | Rating: 8/10
Catherine Rambeau
Detroit Free Press
TOP CRITIC
A rare and fascinating experience for those patient enough to go with its slow flow.
October 7, 2021
Malcolm Johnson
Hartford Courant
All kinds of allegorical meaning could be read into this movie by any analyst determined and supercilious enough. It wouldn’t be worth the trouble. The film is far too full of itself as it is.
October 7, 2021 | Rating: 2/4
Barbara Shulgasser
San Francisco Examiner
Paris, Texas is a landmark work in every sense: understated, powerful, sublime.
October 7, 2021
F.X. Feeney
L.A. Weekly
The grief, the love, the loss; the images by the great, late Robby Mller. The kinetic, the peripatetic; the still, the stilled. The beating heart. The lonely man. The lonely land. I should just sit down and write a letter to Wim Wenders.
September 30, 2021 | Rating: 10/10
Ray Pride
Newcity
Paris, Texas is the cinematic equivalent of a symphony. The film is composed in movements that chart the emotional lives of its characters — of haunting images and anxious silences, of gestures, landscapes, weird juxtapositions and epiphanies.
July 21, 2021
Kirk Honeycutt
Escondido Times-Advocate (CA)
By contributing these different cultural influences, Wenders makes this less about a certain place and time, and more of an overarching human experience.
July 27, 2020
Allen Almachar
The MacGuffin…
Plot
A man wanders out of the desert after a four year absence. His brother finds him, and together they return to L.A. to reunite the man with his young son. Soon after, he and the boy set out to locate the mother of the child, who left shortly after the man disappeared.
Trivia
Goofs / Tidbits
NA
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