WITH FILMMAKER RUSTIN THOMPSON
“Why should we be upset about the disappearance of yet another cinema? Because it matters. Every theater matters.”
– Martin Scorsese
“A love letter to the movies.”
– Aura Johnson, Director of Programming Ashland Independent Film Festival
Ten states. 10,825 miles. 123 theaters.
Filmmaker Rustin Thompson journeys into the American West on a search for traces of what was once a center of small-town life: the movie theater. On the trip, he finds long abandoned and forgotten cinemas; movie houses that have fallen into disrepair; theaters recently closed, theaters struggling to hold on, and theaters that—thanks to their thoughtful caretakers—are not only surviving but thriving.
Between the stops along the way, Rustin poetically intersperses excerpts from Peter Bogdanovich’s 1971 classic film The Last Picture Show, as well as reflections on past and present hardships facing the film exhibition industry. The Last Picture Showsis not only a timely portrait of an industry in crisis, one facing the headwinds of consolidation, streaming, and the diminishing theatrical experience, but it also reminds viewers that even in vast cinema deserts, there are oases of community and gathering that remain, where the movie house continues to be a place of wonder, contemplation, and connection.
Director: Rustin Thompson (US 2026) 78 min.
Director/s
Rustin Thompson
Rustin Thompson is a writer and filmmaker who has made six feature length documentaries, beginning with 30 Frames A Second: The WTO in Seattle (2000), which won several Best Documentary awards, was named one of the Top Ten films of the year by the American Library Association, and one of the Best Undistributed Films of 2001 by The Village Voice. He is also the author of Get Close: Lean Team Documentary Filmmaking (Oxford University Press 2019). His latest documentary, a memoir film, is called My Mother Was Here. He is a former CBS News cameraman and national Emmy award winner. He has written film criticism for Moviemaker, Crosscut, and KBCS.FM, where he is the longtime host of the Americana program Road Songs. Along with his wife and filmmaking partner Ann Hedreen, they own White Noise Productions, where they've made more than 150 short documentaries for non-profits. He is a graduate in Broadcast Journalism from the University of Washington and lives in Seattle.