This 2007 Sci-Fi Box Office Flop Should Be Considered A Masterpiece Nearly 2 Decades Later

Filmmaker Richard Kelly's 2007 dark comedy "Southland Tales" is a complex and chaotic dystopian tale that unfortunately went over terribly when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, leading to a severely cut-down version that ended up getting a limited theatrical release. "Southland Tales" was a full-blown theatrical bomb and the cut version went over poorly with critics as well. Here's the thing, though: "Southland Tales" is a sci-fi comedy masterpiece that's both a reflection of post-9/11 America and a prescient look into what is now our present. 

Set in an alternate 2008, three years after the town of Abilene, Texas was leveled by a nuclear weapon, "Southland Tales" is a fever dream of a film that somehow captures what it's like living in contemporary America. Not only that, but its ensemble cast is truly bonkers, with performances from Dwayne Johnson (back when he was just shedding "The Rock" moniker on posters), Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mandy Moore, Justin Timberlake, Seann William Scott, Amy Poehler, Kevin Smith, Christopher Lambert, Bai Ling, Wallace Shawn, and more.

The Cannes Cut of the movie was eventually released on a limited edition Blu-ray from Arrow Video in 2021, highlighting that "Southland Tales" had become something of a cult classic since its release. These days? It feels even more brilliant than ever, even if the ending will probably always leave fans a bit confused.

Sometimes satire doesn't work when you're stuck in the moment a work of art is satirizing because it feels overblown or hits too close, or even both. In the early 2000s, the government creating a whole new organization to deeply surveil and identify every person in the country seemed like an Orwellian nightmare and an exaggeration of the Patriot Act, but in 2026 it hits a little differently. Add in subplots about environmental disaster caused by tech giants, soldiers being sent off to pointless wars sponsored by corporate interests, and a presidential campaign being blackmailed with a sex tape, and you'll start to wonder if Richard Kelly actually had a crystal ball when he wrote the screenplay. 

Yes, it's wildly garish, but so is the America that Kelly's criticizing. In an interview with /Film in 2021, Kelly explained that while people were put off by the movie's over-the-top form of satire when it debuted, many had come around on the film since the 2016 election and in the years since. "We're just living in this unhinged new era where anything is possible," Kelly explained. "...We are living in this reality television news cycle that our president has just cultivated." 

"Southland Tales" is definitely anti-war and anti-capitalism in its message, but it pokes fun at liberal and conservative archetypes with equal glee and fury. You might have to pause once or twice while you process everything that's happening, but that's kind of what it's like watching the news these days, isn't it?

So what is "Southland Tales" actually about? The plot is more than a little complicated, but it boils down to movie star Boxer Santaros (Dwayne Johnson) getting amnesia and having an affair with ex-porn star and pop musician Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar). That's a problem because he's already married to the daughter of a presidential hopeful, and a sex tape of the two works as excellent blackmail. Meanwhile, a group calling themselves the Neo-Marxists set out to overthrow the totalitarian government using any means necessary, even kidnapping an identical twin (Seann William Scott) and forcing him to pretend to be his police officer brother for more blackmail. Oh, and a villainous technological corporation is going to use the ocean to generate limitless power, but it will probably also start the apocalypse. 

With a voiceover narration by Justin Timberlake as wounded Iraq war veteran Private Pilot Abilene, fake TV segments that feel at home alongside the commercials in "RoboCop," and a whole freaking music video right in the middle of the movie, "Southland Tales" is honestly unlike any other movie on the planet. It's Terry Gilliam by way of Mike Judge: a visionary satire that's also just the right kind of vapid to fully capture the dark side of 21st century Americana. It's as smart as it is stupid, and that's why "Southland Tales" is an outright satirical masterpiece.