YMMV / The Last Picture Show

• Award Snub: The Supporting Oscars for Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman were well-deserved, but despite the amazing Deliberately Monochrome camera work by Robert Surtees, it lost Best Cinematography to Fiddler on the Roof.^note Of course, Surtees had already won three Oscars by that time, and was actually competing against himself that year (for Summer of '42)
• Best Known for the Fanservice: Cybill Shepard's topless scene in the skinny-dipping scene.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Ben Johnson won his Oscar with just under 10 minutes of screen time, with Sam's monologue when he goes fishing with Sonny basically clinching the award for him. Similarly, it was her work in the final scene that earned Cloris Leachman her Oscar.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content: The deleted scene confirming that Coach Popper was gay would have added considerably more to both his characterization and Ruth's.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Billy's death and Sonny's reaction hits even harder with the knowledge that the two are played by real-life brothers, and that Sam Bottoms died at the age of 53, with his brother outliving him.
• Hollywood Homely: Ruth is meant to be seen as plain, but Cloris Leachman is pretty gorgeous. She may later have been typecast as ugly old women in Gonk makeup, but she had previously won beauty pageants before she became an actress. Her shyness however makes it very believable that she wouldn't be seen as desirable though.
• Jerkass Woobie: Lois Farrow is a pretty lousy mother and not particularly nice to anyone, but The Reveal that she was the one that got away for Sam, her heartbroken reaction to his death and the fact that she's bored with life makes her very sympathetic.
• Retroactive Recognition: Cloris Leachman was already getting notice from this and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, but she would become even more famous as of Young Frankenstein a few years later.
• Tear Jerker: Sam's death, all the more so because we learn about it secondhand just like Sonny and Duane, plus Billy's sudden death at the end.
• Values Dissonance: The way the film presents Sonny's affair with Ruth. Particularly that it's meant to be a low moment for him when he jilts her in favour of Jacy. Ruth is 40, and Sonny is still in high school when their affair starts, and Jacy is his age.
• The Woobie:
  • The film touches on it, but the novel explains in detail that Sam the Lion had a miserable life, and the townsfolk view him as a Woobie in-universe. He had multiple failed business ventures up until he bought the theater, pool hall and café. He had three sons who all died in tragic accidents. And his wife had years of mental illness before she died.
  • Ruth is a lonely housewife who doesn't appear to have any friends, and it's implied that her husband is gay, so their marriage is pretty loveless. While the affair with the teenage Sonny raises eyebrows, she gets spurned by him in favour of Jacy, and she's very easy to pity as a result.

---