A group of 50's high schoolers come of age in a bleak, isolated, atrophied West Texas town that is slowly dying, both economically and culturally.
In tiny Anarene, Texas, in the lull between World War Two and the Korean Conflict, Sonny and Duane are best friends. Enduring that awkward period of life between boyhood and manhood, the two pass their time the best way they know how -- with the movie house, basketball, and girls.
But the town is dying a quiet death and the boys are torn between a future somewhere out there, or making do with their inheritance of a run-down pool hall and a decrepit movie house. When folks stop attending the second-run features at the movie house, the time comes for the last picture show. The boys feel a stage of their lives closing and stand uneasily on the threshold of the rest of their lives.
