Director: Terrence Malick, Script: Terrence Malick, Editor: Robert Estrin, Music: George Tipton, Principal Cast: Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates, Ramon Bieri, Alan Vint, Gary Littlejohn, Producer: Terrence Malick, Co-Producer: Jill Jakes, Executive Producer: Edward R. Pressman, Associate Producer: Lou Stroller, Production: Badlands Company, Jill Jakes Production, Pressman-Williams
One of the most impressive debuts in film history. Terrence Malick took his inspiration from the story of teenagers Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate, who murdered eleven people in 1957/58. Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen play the two outlaws as adolescents who are in equal parts naïve and strangely devoid of emotion, and who dream of becoming famous. Already in this film, the visual talent of the then 30-year-old director reveals itself in every shot – few cinematic works of such epic stature were ever made on a comparable shoestring budget (the film's production costs amounted to a mere 450,000 dollars).