What Is Left to Say About Waco? ‘Waco: American Apocalypse’ Doesn’t Even Try
Netflix’s new docuseries revisits the 1993 standoff between David Koresh and the federal government without any agenda—or real purpose.
Sean O’Neal has been a contributor to Texas Monthly since 2019, covering film, music, and Texas culture, with the occasional foray into politics. Sean grew up in Arlington before moving to Austin to attend UT. After graduating, he became comfortably ensconced within the city’s fabled “velvet rut” while vaguely pursuing a music career. Those dreams never quite panned out, although Sean soon forged another path in the equally lucrative and stable field of journalism. Prior to joining Texas Monthly, Sean spent twelve years at the A.V. Club, where he also served as its editor in chief. His writing has appeared in various publications, such as GQ, Vulture, and Men’s Health, although Texas Monthly is far and away the only one that his in-laws have ever mentioned.
Netflix’s new docuseries revisits the 1993 standoff between David Koresh and the federal government without any agenda—or real purpose.
Forty years ago, a crop of films led by ‘Terms of Endearment’ and ‘Tender Mercies’ reimagined the way we see Texas.
With ‘The Baroness From Kaufman County,’ two Austin filmmakers help the East Texas philanthropist tell her story the way she sees it.
Jonathan Majors and Tommy Lee Jones don’t just have their home state in common.
From ‘Stranger Things’ to the Sex Pistols, from the Houston suburbs to the outskirts of Texas City, these were the actors who got our attention.
The track from Abilene-based Old Fire’s new album, ‘Voids,’ evokes the bleakness of war and of the West Texas landscape.
Texas’s elite police force has long played the hero in film and television, although the reality is far more complex.
David Gordon Green’s rebooted horror trilogy concludes with another search for meaning, yet again, in senseless murder.
The CW drama is set in nineteenth-century Texas but strives for twenty-first-century relevance.
The Austin-based film festival returned for another round of horror and fantasy, now tinged with some distinctly real-world anxieties.
A Larry McMurtry adaptation directed by Sidney Lumet and filmed entirely in Bastrop—what could go wrong? For ‘Lovin’ Molly,’ it began with the boots.
Fantastic Fest returns with another selection of out-there curios, but with some familiar local faces to keep you grounded.
Martha Kelly, the former “Funniest Person in Austin,” is nominated for her deadly serious role in HBO’s ‘Euphoria.’
The Austin-based nonprofit has become a social media star with clips of vintage local newscasts, bizarre industrial films, and one-of-a-kind celebrity encounters.
Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butt-Head return for a new movie and series that find them older but far from wiser. Is Texas finally ready to claim them as our own?
Tom Cruise returns, with Austin’s Glen Powell in tow, for a crowd-pleasing sequel that just may pull embattled theaters out of the danger zone.
The pistol-packing cartoon villain represents every ugly stereotype about our state, but there’s a strange power in embracing him.
The storied actor and Fort Worth native always wanted to direct. His gripping debut, released twenty years ago, showed us why.
For every toddler who loved Barney, there was an adult who wanted to punch him. Now the purple dinosaur is back to torment a new generation.
Eagle Pennell’s ‘The Whole Shootin’ Match’ sets the standard for showing Texans who they are instead of who they’re supposed to be.
Trail of Dead was “the band that trashes everything.” But on its eleventh album, ‘XI: Bleed Here Now,’ it’s finally grown into the classic rock group it always wanted to be.
The sequel to Tobe Hooper’s slasher sucks all the fun out of psychotic cannibal killers—but it does have a message for Californians headed to Texas.
Richard Linklater’s ‘SubUrbia’ is ‘The Last Picture Show’ of the nineties.
The Austin-set firefighter show devotes four episodes to the 2021 freeze while ignoring all of the real-life drama.
The Austin filmmaker’s episodes of ‘The Book of Boba Fett’ embody an existential crisis over the future of Star Wars.
How a simple, two-chord song written by an Iowan became (clap clap clap clap) our unofficial state anthem.
The Texas City native and star of the hit HBO comedy series talks Judy Gemstone, ham slices, and why there’s nothing worse than someone trying to be funny.
From newcomers to reliable veterans to a pop star remaking her TV career, these were the actors worth watching this year.
Texas actor Tye Sheridan stars alongside Ben Affleck in the sentimental yet skippable story of an aspiring writer, directed by George Clooney.
The unnerving feature debut from Red Oak native Lauren Hadaway plumbs the gloomy depths beneath a college rower’s quest for greatness.
Twenty-five years later, Mike Judge’s ‘King of the Hill’ still captures something essential about Texans and Texas life. But are there any Hank Hills left?
The streaming phenomenon, produced just outside of Dallas, is winning converts with its ‘Friday Night Lights’ spin on faith.
Fort Worth writer-director Derek Presley overcame unprecedented odds to make his otherwise unremarkable thriller about a tormented hit man.
The latest from the director of ‘The Florida Project’ sees a scheming former porn star wash up along Texas’s Gulf Coast.
A new book tells the sweeping tale of the Alamo’s Weird Wednesday series, the American Genre Film Archive, and Austin’s custodians of cult.
The rising Grapevine star brings fresh spirit to a movie that’s fatally preoccupied with reviving the dead.
How an Amarillo oilman stole the mask right off the Lone Ranger’s face, and made one of film’s most infamous failures in the process.
The 1981 slasher spoof prominently features Houston and a future Texas politician, but that’s not all that’s notable about it.
The Houston filmmaker’s latest is a valentine to defiantly idiosyncratic storytellers like Wes Anderson.
The sequel to David Gordon Green’s franchise reboot is all filler, same old killer.
Austin-raised writer-director Justin Corsbie’s debut about a down-on-his-luck troubadour feels as warmly familiar as the Americana songs that inspired it.
The Houston-raised actor shines as a pompous space tyrant in the otherwise dreary Isaac Asimov adaptation.
The Monahans-bred actor elevates this loopy, Lost-like sci-fi drama about a mom fighting her way out of a mysterious primeval world.
The rancher and self-proclaimed rodeo legend has an ego the size of Texas, and he uses it for the good of the “cowboy cause.”
The multifaceted musician, former city-council candidate, and documentary star returns with an album of pristine guitar and gentle self-reflection.
Dallas’s mercurial pop phenom writes and stars in this loosely autobiographical satire that raises questions it doesn’t deign to answer.
Kick off the football season with this underappreciated, Denton-filmed comedy, which captured some truths about Texas football that later, more-serious movies would expand on.
Does simply putting the Grand Prairie star’s name on some ice cream inherently raise its value? An investigation.
Twenty-five years ago, fans accused the band of selling out. The group’s reply still stands: “Yeah, but who cares?”
Roddenberry may have eschewed identifying with the state, but the stories he told carry a Texan DNA.