Country music has always had a way of lamenting the hard truths of life, love, and getting through the disasters of daily living. In many ways, good country music is more honest about real life than just about any other form of popular music. Not that this makes it superior, it just makes it more relatable.
I have a theory that, because of its honesty, country music creates stars whose career trajectories are much longer than other forms. This music is more timeless and less disposable, which makes country stars less disposable. You could trace the entire course of Willie Nelson’s long life, for instance, through his music. Combine those longer careers with the honesty of the music and you get fans who feel an intimacy with their favorite musicians that you don’t find in other forms. Fans feel like they know George Jones because George Jones sings about their lives as they live them.
That’s why, when considering the best movies for country music fans, the ones that come to mind have tended to be either biopics or films that clearly emulate the lives of country music stars. Well, there’s one obvious exception on this list, but we’ll get into that later.
If you’re a country music fan, you’ve probably seen all of these movies. But every single one of these movies holds up exceptionally well under repeated viewings. Trust me, I’ve watched all of these several times, and they’re all worth renting again.
Robert Duvall plays Mac Sledge, a George Jones-type of country singer who crashes and burns. While out on a bender, Mac ends up drunkenly checking into a small roadside motel in middle-of-nowhere Texas, which is run by a young widow and her son (her husband was killed in Vietnam). Duvall’s character is in desperate need of redemption for the damage he has caused in his own life. And he stakes a claim to beginning that redemption by helping the widow run the motel and raise the boy. This is a deeply moving and powerful film that is unflinching in its portrayal of the devastation that alcoholism and fame can take on a family. The script is by the late playwright and screenwriter Horton Foote, who also wrote the screenplay for To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). It was directed by Australian Bruce Beresford after being rejected by several American directors. It won Oscars for Best Screenplay and Best Actor. Tess Harper co-stars.
This may be the best biopic of all time. George Vecsey, the highly-regarded sports columnist for The New York Times, was a big Loretta Lynn fan and ended up co-authoring her memoir in 1976. It’s a tremendous story and an excellent read. The book was turned into a movie in 1980. The film stars Sissy Spacek in the performance of a lifetime. Not only is her acting magnificent, Spacek sings all the songs in the movie and perfectly reproduces Lynn’s unique and plaintive voice. She deservedly won an Oscar for her performance. The cast also includes Tommy Lee Jones, Beverly D’Angelo (as Patsy Cline), and Levon Helm, who also happened to be the drummer for The Band. (Helm is the vocalist on some of The Band’s best songs, including The Weight). The screenplay was written by Thomas Rickman, who also wrote the screenplays for Hooper (1978), Tuesdays with Morrie (1999), and Truman (the 1995 biopic of Harry Truman). You really need to see this movie again.
Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon shine—actually “explode” might be a better word here—in this critically-acclaimed portrait of the courtship and marriage of Johnny Cash and June Carter. This movie is what you could call “unvarnished.” No hagiography going on here. It honestly depicts their courtship while Cash was married to another woman and had a family. Cash was also struggling with a chemical dependency while cheating on his wife with June Carter, who came from the Gospel-singing Carter family. A complicated romance? You bet. And one that is not glossed over here. Tremendous performances here by Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, both of whom do their own singing. This is the movie that convinced me that Witherspoon is a great actress. Her June Carter is a tour-de-force piece of acting and singing. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress, and deservedly so. The film’s director was James Mangold, who most recently directed Ford v Ferrari (2019).
Hank Thompson was a country star you may not have heard of, but his music is pure delight. He performed in the Western Swing style, and sang about drinking and screwing up your life. His career spanned more than 60 years and he was still performing in his early 80s when he died in 2007. Some of his best-known songs include: Hangover Tavern, On the Wild Side of Life, It Don’t Hurt Anymore, and A Six Pack to Go. His life and music formed the basis of Thomas Cobb’s 1987 novel Crazy Heart about a down-and-out country star trying to turn his life around. Perfect material for an actor like Jeff Bridges, who won an Oscar for Best Actor for this performance as Otis Blake. Blake was once a star, but his career has been frittered away by alcoholism. This is familiar territory, I know. You saw it in A Star is Born (2018) as well as in Tender Mercies (1983). He is alienated from his son (Colin Farrell), but life starts to turn around for Blake when he meets a young journalist (Maggie Gyllenhall) and they form a bond, which of course, he screws up by drinking. Thus begins his rehabilitation and journey to recovery. This is a warm and emotional movie, more about redemption and family than about country music, but the soundtrack is tremendous and includes songs by T. Bone Burnett, Townes Van Zandt, and other country music song-writing luminaries. This movie is a keeper.
The Coen Brothers’ (Joel and Ethan) bemusing retelling of The Odyssey set in Mississippi during the Great Depression. This movie has one of the best soundtracks. It is, in fact, the most notable feature of the film. It’s not a particularly great Coen Brothers movie, and came on the heels of their two masterpieces, Fargo (1996) and The Big Lebowski (1998). George Clooney stars as Ulysses McGill (hey, I told you it’s a retelling of The Odyssey), and features John Goodman as a one-eyed bad guy (the Cyclops, get it?). It’s all very amusing and a lot of fun. Roger Deakins won the Academy Award for Cinematography and the Coen Brothers were nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. All that’s well and good, but that’s not the reason you should watch this movie. You should watch it for the soundtrack. T. Bone Burnett produced the soundtrack, which is now considered one of the 50 greatest country albums of all time, winning numerous awards. There are so many great tracks on this soundtrack, but for me the loveliest is Alison Krause’s cover of the traditional gospel song Down to the River to Pray. Wow!
David Raether is a veteran TV writer and essayist. He worked for 12 years as a television sitcom writer/producer, including a 111-episode run on the ground-breaking ABC comedy “Roseanne.” His essays have been published by Salon.com, The Times of London, and Longforms.org, and have been lauded by The Atlantic Magazine and the BBC World Service. His memoir, Homeless: A Picaresque Memoir from Our Times, is awaiting publication.