In 1959, Kit (Martin Sheen), who has killed several people, and his new girlfriend Holly (Sissy Spacek), who watched him do it, are adrift in a double fantasy of crime and punishment across South Dakota and Montana. They're playing make-believe but the bullets and bloodshed are very real.

The first of writer/director Terrence Malick's three landmark films (1978's 'Days of Heaven' and 1998's 'The Thin Red Line' are the others) was inspired by a real life 1958 Midwestern killing spree. Malick imaginatively transforms their story into a provocative study of people alienated from everyday life, but fascinating to us. Beautifully shot and memorably acted, 'Badlands' is a spellbinding journey...