“Ten states. 10,825 miles. 123 theaters. An elegy for small-town cinemas.”
This is the tagline for Rustin Thompson’s feature-length documentary, “The Last Picture Shows.” Thompson served as the director, writer, producer, cinematographer, and editor of this love letter to movie theaters that journeys into the American West. The film visits rural theaters that have closed their doors, those fighting to stay open, and a few that are thriving. Along the way, Thompson pays special attention to the rural communities and owners whose lives have been shaped by these often-overlooked cultural spaces. Having previously written about cinema deserts across rural America, I sat down with Thompson to discuss our shared interest in the unique magic of movie theaters and their struggle to survive.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Listen to the full interview on Yonder Radio episode 126, released on September 10, 2026.
Rustin Thompson is a filmmaker, writer, and deejay based in Seattle. (Photo courtesy of Rustin Thompson)
Daily Yonder: In your film, “The Last Picture Shows,” you lay out some fascinating facts about movie theaters in the United States. You explain that in 1929 there were 22,000 movie theaters in the country, and now there are fewer than 3,000. Additionally, there were thousands of drive-in theaters, but now only 300 remain. What angle did you take to telling this story of loss?
Rustin Thompson: I started from an angle of personal grief over the loss of arthouse theaters and small theaters in the country. I come from Seattle, and we used to have a vibrant arthouse scene. Many of those theaters have closed. I also grew up in small parts of the West – mainly Eastern Oregon and parts of Washington – and these towns have theaters that have been long closed, or ones still open that make me wonder: how do they stay in business? I wonder what that says about the town, what it says about film-going in America, and what kind of memories these spaces hold. So I set out on my own to do a long road trip through the American West to find the true cinema deserts of the West – those are the towns where theaters are separated, sometimes by 100 miles. I wanted to get the texture and the feel of the Western landscapes. My film is very contemplative. It moves at a very leisurely pace, but I wanted to capture the melancholy of these spaces. But also, I talked to the managers and owners of the theaters that still exist, that are still open for business, and what some of their challenges are in keeping these theaters going – these places that have really remained oases of community for the people living in these towns.
DY: So on this theater-going journey, you traveled across 10 Western states. What was it like to both go to so many independent movie theaters and also meet the people behind those spaces?
RT: I chose the American West because they are the true cinema deserts. But also, it was a scope I could manage. I also thought of the film as a Western. It’s almost like these theater owners are holding their own against the villains, which are the huge corporate studios that dictate so much of their programming. I would sometimes just come into town knowing that there were no theaters that were still open, and I would find those empty buildings and shoot the facades. And other times, I would come into these towns where I knew a theater was open, and I knew that they had a marquee that would be lit up at night against a beautiful western sky. So, I planned my route to spend the night in some of those towns to film the marquee.
The marquee at El Raton in Ratin, New Mexico. (Photo by Rustin Thompson)
Sometimes I would just literally knock on the door, meet the owner, tell them what I’m doing, and ask if I could interview them. I wanted to talk about the effect of having to convert to digital. I wanted to talk about the effects of Covid. I wanted to talk about the movie studios and the demands they put on these theaters. I wanted to talk to them about what these theaters mean to the community, and also why they kept at this. They’re not doing it to get rich. They’re doing it because they feel part of the community. They provide a vital place for people to get out of their house and come downtown to see a movie in a communal space, and they don’t want to lose that. So they are fighting a tough fight, but a good fight.
DY: You mentioned some of the struggles that independent theaters might face, especially with big studio systems. What is it like to run a small theater in comparison to something like a massive theater chain?
RT: So many of the small theaters that I filmed are single-screen theaters. Most of the single-screen theaters work with booking agents who will often book the same film in around 80 theaters in a particular region. I would drive through these towns, and see the same film playing at all these theaters, sometimes for three weeks. So you wouldn’t have any other choice. That was dictated by the movie studios. They would want theaters to play these films according to what they call a “clean screen” policy, meaning you can’t show anything else while that film is running. So if you’re in a small town of 5,000 people or 8,000 people, most of the people are going to see those films on the opening weekend, but it still has to sit in that theater because those are the rules of the game dictated by these major studios. They don’t really care if maybe only one or two or three more people go see that film. They are going to get that money regardless. Theaters have often been penalized by the studios if they remove the film early, and the studios will say, “Okay, you’re not going to get our next big blockbuster for six months.” So they’re fighting against that, and that’s becoming a big problem.
The Old Glory Theatre, in Hawthorne, Nevada, received historical designation by the state of Nevada in 2024 and is currently under restoration. (Photo by Rustin Thompson)
DY: You mentioned the leisurely pacing of “The Last Picture Shows,” which was something I really loved about the film. Can you talk about the decisions that went into how you put this film together and how you decided to have so much of it be set to music and emphasize still photographs of the theaters?
RT: I have so many favorite film directors, and some of them are directors of Westerns. One of the things I wanted to do was capture that special feeling the West has of this kind of languid pace, and the sounds you get out there of wind, of plastic flapping in the breeze that’s caught on barbed wire, of the far distant train, of maybe the lone car going through the main street. It was important to me to capture the texture of the West, to capture the light. I made the entire film with available light, and I did it all on my own. Sometimes I felt like I was the stranger coming to town in an old Western and trying to get to the bottom of what these store owners were up against.
The music was a very important component early on. It reflects another role that I have in my life, which is as a disc jockey on a radio station in Seattle. My show is called Road Songs, and I play Americana, alternative country, and folk music. I reached out to independent artists who I knew had the recording rights and the publishing rights to their music. So I didn’t have to deal with any corporate entities whatsoever. I didn’t have to pay licensing fees that pile up as a movie stays out there. That gave me the ability to let these songs breathe. So often you hear really great music in a movie, and it ends after 15 seconds because you have to pay more for every other 30 seconds of a song that you use. I wanted the lyrics of the songs to metaphorically represent the mood I was trying to go for in the film. I wanted it all to feel like the viewer was on a road trip with me in the American West. And one of the great bits of feedback I get after the film is that people say I want to go on a road trip, I want to go to these places, I want to see these theaters.
The facade of the Empire movie theater, Tekoa, Washington. (Photo by Rustin Thompson)
DY: Why are movie theaters important, and what is lost when there’s no movie theater in a town? More specifically, why are movie theaters important to rural places?
RT: I think they’re important aesthetically, and they’re important for cinema because a movie theater is still going to give you the best visual projection possible and the best sound possible, better than any home cinema that you can probably invent. A movie theater is still going to be the supreme atmosphere to watch a film. Going into a theater and sitting with other strangers, and having to really fixate on the film and not having distractions, you are committed to that experience, and that’s important to understand what this film is trying to convey to you. And I think what we lose by losing these theaters is we lose the ability to cultivate the next generation of viewers. People get out of the habit, just like people get out of the habit of so many other things, when digitalization and online tools get in the way. It’s important to still have those venues and those avenues of gathering available to people.
Seats in the auditorium at the Washoe theater in Anaconda, Montana. (Photo by Rustin Thompson)
And in small towns, it’s especially important because those venues are often used for other ways to gather too. They’re used for live music. They’re used for putting on plays. They’re used for high school graduations and wedding celebrations. These spaces are so important because they can mean so many things to so many people. And if you know that New York and Los Angeles are talking about “The Odyssey,” you want to be able to talk about it too. You want to be able to see that film, so the movie theater is important for you to have access to that experience.
DY: Where can people find “The Last Picture Shows”?
RT: We’re doing a roadshow tour where we’re taking it to a lot of towns and doing single one-off shows. The best place to find all of the theaters is my website. And eventually the film will be going to streaming, but in keeping with the message of the film, we are waiting a few months. It’ll probably be streaming in January of 2027.
This interview first appeared in Path Finders, a weekly email newsletter from the Daily Yonder. Each Monday, Path Finders features a Q&A with a rural thinker, creator, or doer. Join the mailing list today, to have these illuminating conversations delivered straight to your inbox.
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The post Q&A: Filmmaker Rustin Thompson on Cinema Deserts in Rural America appeared first on The Daily Yonder.
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