This story was originally told live at Bass Concert Hall on Oct. 23, 2024. Our next ATXplained Live show is April 29. Get tickets here.
Austin's connection to movies and TV shows goes far beyond the premieres that dominate the marquees of theaters during South by Southwest and other festivals. They're made in Austin, too, darn it!
Let’s run down some of our (and your) favorites shot locally, starting with The Big Green. The 1995 soccer-misfits movie led by the sexy sheriff Steve Guttenberg was shot in Austin with additional work done in Manor, Elgin and Pflugerville.
Then there’s the Coen brothers' film Blood Simple, filmed downtown and featuring one of the most gorgeous shots of Mount Bonnell you’ve ever seen.
TV shows are produced here, too, like the AMC series Fear the Walking Dead, starring Academy Award-nominated actor Colman Domingo.
Sarah Dixon wanted to know which of these reigns supreme as the most famous. Grab some popcorn, settle in and read on.
Hall of fame horror
The recognition for the first movie filmed in the Austin area goes to 1969’s Eggshells. You may not be familiar with the title but perhaps you know the name of the fella who directed it: Tobe Hooper.
Hooper also directed a movie filmed in the area just a few years later: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. More than 50 years later, the cult horror film’s legacy – and its countless revisits and copycats – live on. The City of Austin even designated Oct. 11, 2024, as “Texas Chain Saw Massacre Day.”
If you’re pining to step back into that torturous world, you're in luck. Out in Bastrop, you’ll find The Gas Station where some of the filming took place.
You can even recreate one of the film’s gorier scenes if you're feeling up for it – but as far as BBQ recommendations, you’re on your own.
Linklater’s Austin
In the summer of 1990, a film by the name of Slacker introduced the city to the world and thrust Richard Linklater into cinema’s spotlight.
Shot on a small budget and filmed throughout Austin, the movie was part of a movement of independent American films that became the norm for the '90s.
Similarly to Hooper’s Eggshells, Linklater's debut film only set the scene for an even bigger success: Dazed and Confused. Muscle cars, bell bottoms, lighted doobies and a sweet introduction from Aerosmith is just minute one of 1993’s magnum opus.
Legend has it that Uncle Sam’s stoned eyes at Bedichek Middle School hung around long past the film’s shooting.
Dazed and Confused was set during America’s bicentennial in May 1976, but its iconic images of early 1990s' Austin capture one version of the city's ever-evolving "Golden Age."
Honorable mentions
The discussion around the most famous movie filmed in Austin may begin with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Dazed and Confused, but don’t think we’ve forgotten the rest.
Mike Judge's films Idiocracy and Office Space were both filmed across the city. A very important cast member even made an appearance during our live show in October.
Robert Rodriguez, too, has done his part to bring Austin to the big screen – from the kick-butt teamwork that drives Spy Kids, to the gnashing and thrashing that follows in the wake of the title character Machete.
There’s also the rollerblading action of Whip It, the emotional intensity of Terrence Malik’s The Tree of Life and the family drama of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?
And that’s just the movies. In 2005, MTV’s The Real World brought Austin vibes to cable television homes across the world.
In fact, television filmed in Austin was a big reason Dixon asked KUT to investigate this story in the first place.
“I loved Friday Night Lights growing up and that’s filmed in Austin,” she said.
Indeed it was. And let’s settle another thing while we’re here: If there’s a competition for sexiest fictional coach, Eric Taylor surely leads the pack.
Dixon happened to have another connection with a TV show filmed in Austin: HBO’s Love & Death.
“I went to Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary," she said, "and part of it was filmed at the seminary while I was there."
But when did filming here begin?
As mentioned earlier, Eggshells was the first feature movie filmed in the Austin area. The first national TV show filmed here, Route 66, shot its second season in Austin and other cities across the state in 1961.
But filming – professional and amateur – has been happening for more than a century in the Austin area.
In fact, we’ve got proof of lots of these recordings thanks to the Texas Archive of the Moving Image, an organization focused on discovering, preserving and sharing videos from Texans past.
The archive’s founder, Caroline Frick, said the collection is made up of all kinds of recordings – newsreels and commercials, yes, but lots of home videos, too.
They've got Christmas mornings spent with family members long gone, birthday parties that are but a distant memory for the toddler being celebrated, and one of the more common celebrations put to film.
“Lot of parade footage," Frick said. "I'm not going to lie. People love to parade."
Back when the archive was just getting its footing, Frick got a phone call from someone she’d worked with previously at Warner Brothers in Los Angeles. The caller said a woman had some early Texas films that belonged to her family. She didn’t have much money to preserve the films, but she thought they were worth saving.
“I quickly realized … that indeed she was the granddaughter of the two pioneering Central Texas filmmakers, the Tilley brothers out of San Antonio and Austin,” Frick said.
The earliest films from Paul and Wesley Hope Tilley were dated from 1911. They're the oldest the archive has ever found with Austin origins, and they captured some pretty iconic locations still around today – from the state Capitol to the Paramount Theatre.
Alright, alright, alright. So which of these is the most famous?
Picking the most famous movie to represent the city feels like qualifying which era of Austin was the best.
Goalposts are moved depending on which year you arrived here, or whether horror movies make you go to sleep with your bathroom lights on.
So, which one is the most famous?
We think it's Dazed and Confused.
What say you?
