True Stories

1986 Directed by David Byrne

A Completely Cool, Multi-Purpose Movie.

A small but growing Texas town, filled with strange and musical characters, celebrates its sesquicentennial and converge on a local parade and talent show.

David Byrne John Goodman Swoosie Kurtz Spalding Gray Annie McEnroe Jo Harvey Allen Alix Elias Roebuck 'Pops' Staples Tito Larriva John Ingle Jerry Harrison Chris Frantz Tina Weymouth Matthew Posey Amy Buffington Richard Dowlearn Scott Valentine Jason Liebrecht John Pritchett Chris Douridas Louis Black Leesa Rowland

Alternative Titles

デイヴィッド・バーンのトゥルー・ストーリー, トゥルー・ストーリー

music comedy

89 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by demi adejuyigbe ★★★★★ 7

a fucking masterpiece. the more i watch byrne do his thing, the funnier it is that i used to confuse him and david lynch without any real knowledge of each other, because i do think they do a lot of similar things– just with polar opposite auras about their work. could've switched names with american utopia and worked just as well, but that's more a credit to byrne's consistency in his work/message. i could write 1,000 words on how loving and celebratory and quietly funny and sarcastic this movie is, and one day on a subsequent viewing i probably will.
i'd like to believe david byrne has seen Joe Pera Talks With You and he loves it. :)
Review by brat pitt ★★★★★ 9

david byrne is the mr. rogers of new wave music because they both:
A. exude the same earnest, comforting energy
B. are known for their iconic fashion choices (cardigan sweater!!! big suit!!!)
and C. are the only men who do not immediately set off my fight-or-flight reflex
Review by demi adejuyigbe ★★★★ 8

honestly the exact kind of beautiful, weird, specific, small town working class wonder-piece i needed time watch tonight. it’s a shame byrne didn’t direct anything else because he’s got such a specific style that feels like it could’ve been applied to an entire generation of eccentric comedies to great effect! i love you david!
Review by brat pitt ★★★★★ 8

“i like sad songs. they make me wanna lie on the floor.”
sometimes this True Stories line plays in my head when i’m listening to mitski and lying on the floor and i think about how natural and human it is to feel sadness and how it is proof that i am a real living person with thoughts and emotions and no, it’s nothing to romanticize, but it is something to accept, and maybe even appreciate, and a burning ray of hope will perforate the cloud above my head and even if just a tiny sliver of light peeks through it’s still enough to make a rainbow :)
Review by Gabriel Gundacker 4

Tremendous, meaningful nonsense. No one else can get me teary from one weird sentence. David Byrne’s surrealism never gives into self important witticisms a la Terry Gilliam’s. Surrealism often leaves people feeling like they don’t have an invitation, but David Byrne’s brand is inclusive, always focusing on feelings before intellectuality. That’s why the wacko-tacko Talking Heads didn’t get lost in their generation, and everyone I know listens to them with the same fervor as 1984. The same goes for this movie, which would have been celebrated as forward had it been released right now today, Tuesday 2020. Safe to say I had a very good time watching it!
Review by sydney ★★★★★ 5

At one point during this film, the camera follows a lone sheet of newspaper floating across the lawns of some bland suburban houses. David Byrne narrates: "Look at that - who can say it isn't beautiful?", and through the eyes of TRUE STORIES, it is. It's a sort of meditation on progress, told with one of the most natural and unforced displays of strangeness I've ever seen. Gone is the underlying fear and cynicism of a lot of Talking Heads' music, replaced by an almost childlike sense of wonder and excitement for the future - the future of technology, the future of love, the way our lives might change for the better.
Watching TRUE STORIES as a kid might be…
Review by iana ★★★★★ 3

i want david byrne to adopt me
Review by Joe ★★★★½ 5

Literally everything David Byrne says in this movie can serve as a quote in a Letterboxd review, you pick one.
Tempting to read this as pure satire, but if that's what it is it's extraordinarily condescending and unilluminating - instead I think the view voiced by Byrne, that suburban sprawl, shopping malls, prefabricated buildings, TV commercials, and even giant corporations can all be beautiful is more or less what's being expressed by the movie, albeit in a very funny tongue-in-cheek mode that should seem faintly familiar to fans of his band. And then there's the stuff that probably was intended as satire in 1986, like the "Puzzling Evidence" religion based on an unending conspiracy narrative, that have basically come true in the intervening 30 years. Extremely hard not to love.
Review by kate ★★★★★ 4

david byrne in this movie be like:
　　 🤠
　　 🗣🗣🗣
　 🗣　 🗣　 🗣
👇　 🗣　 🗣　 👇
　　 🗣　 🗣
　　 👢　 👢
“howdy, im the twink noises sheriff!”
Review by Sally Jane Black Sunday 3

David Byrne proves to be as eccentric a filmmaker as he does a musician. This movie is a glorious spectacle, a celebration of America (inadvertently fitting considering the date I watched it), and a sly commentary on commercialism, industrialisation, and modern America at the same time. In part, it is a cross between David Lynch and John Waters and Wim Wenders, capturing small town, Middle America with an understanding of the quirks, kitsch, and expanses, but it is more than that. It has a musical soul and an appreciation of romance, and a glossy, neon eye for the absurd, that shows how the off-kilter persona Byrne has could be derived from the deceptive homogeneity of small town life.
It also…
Review by Lulu

i'm 6'3" and maintain a very consistent panda bear shape
Review by maddie ★★★★ 1

john goodman singing people like us has just cleared my skin/brought my grades up/restored my crops/added 5 years to my lifespan and taught me how to love myself

Recent reviews

Review by Katherine

I thought Virgil was a real place until they started filming in Northpark Mall and my brain went HEY HEY NOW THATS IN DALLAS
Review by justinclem ★★★★

Idiosyncratic in every sense of the word
Review by jon burden ★★★★★

“I like sad songs. They make me wanna lie on the floor.”
I said this in my Stop Making Sense review but I really wish I would’ve discovered David Byrne when I was younger. All of his stuff is so magical and delightful. True Stories is earnest and fun. I agree with Demi Adejuyigbe’s review: David Byrne is kind of like David Lynch but without all the upsetting shit. Much more sunshine. I could watch this movie everyday for the rest of my life.
Review by patric ★★★★★

it's really disappointing that David Byrne hasn't directed another film after this one. i'd be willing to pay for a fucking Letterboxd Pro membership just to see David Byrne doing David Byrne things on the screen again. True Stories goes without saying that Byrne defines a creative genius. he's a master of music, writing, and even with only this single film, of cinema as well. out of all the movies I've watched out there that try to stage this bizzarre, cutesy, eccentric feeling in them, True Stories is the one that has felt the most genuine.
for 89 minutes, these characters are out here to give color to the black and white picture we see as the world. Byrne has…
Review by Arik Devens ★★★★

I’m a huge fan of movies and tv shows about small weird towns where everything is possible and nothing is true. I am also a huge fan of Talking Heads. Apparently that’s not a coincidence.
Review by Edward Morgan

David Byrne is so gotdam hot
Review by John Sharbaugh ★★★★

Every town has quirks. Quirks that seem absurd to the stranger, the passerby, but completely normal to those who live in the town. Its the curious characters who tell stories of grandeur or the holiday parades that seem to last for too long and too short at the same time or any of the other personal traits that a town has. These things are what make the places we live home. Regardless of cultural identity or region on a map these oddities or idiosyncrasies are comforting. They remind us of the place we live and the places we have lived. Which is why True Stories is a truly apt title for this movie.
Review by brandonrector ★★★★★

I would like to live in this movie forever.
Review by Daniel Sacks ★★★★★

I’m a subscriber to the law of charity. That is, in order to properly form an argument you must first create the best possible version of the negation. David Byrne is trying to have an argument and True Stories manages a scathing portrayal and takedown of.... something(?). It’s like, this movie shows the best possible outcome of capitalism, and sure it’s nice to have things and wealth but at the end of the day they’re just that. Things. It’s incredibly lonely, but also impossibly beautiful. That careful combination is no doubt thanks in part to Robby Müller and his camera work. And it’s not like because you’re lonely you have to be sad. Lonely is a state of being that…
Review by demi adejuyigbe ★★★★★ 7

a fucking masterpiece. the more i watch byrne do his thing, the funnier it is that i used to confuse him and david lynch without any real knowledge of each other, because i do think they do a lot of similar things– just with polar opposite auras about their work. could've switched names with american utopia and worked just as well, but that's more a credit to byrne's consistency in his work/message. i could write 1,000 words on how loving and celebratory and quietly funny and sarcastic this movie is, and one day on a subsequent viewing i probably will.
i'd like to believe david byrne has seen Joe Pera Talks With You and he loves it. :)
Review by leo ★★★★½

linda! larry! therr are no weekends anymore!!!!
Review by Zachary Dirksen ★★★★½

David Byrne should make another movie.
John Goodman should do another musical.