''God Save Texas'' is a 2024 American

documentary A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

series, directed by

Richard Linklater Richard Linklater (; born July 30, 1960) is an American filmmaker. He is known for making films that deal thematically with suburban culture and the effects of the passage of time. In 2015, Linklater was included on the annual ''Time'' 100 li ...

Alex Stapleton Alex Stapleton is an American director, showrunner, and executive producer of documentary feature films and unscripted television. Career Stapleton's directorial debut was the 2011 feature documentary, '' Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollyw ...

, and Iliana Sosa. It is inspired by the book ''God Save Texas: A Journey Into the Soul of the Lone Star State'' by

Lawrence Wright Lawrence Wright (born August 2, 1947) is an American writer and journalist, who is a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' magazine, and fellow at the Center for Law and Security at the New York University School of Law. Wright is best known as ...

. The series explores the past, present, and future of

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

. It had its world premiere at the

2024 Sundance Film Festival The 2024 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 18 to 28, 2024. The first lineup of competition films was announced on December 6, 2023. Among the highlighted events included the premiere of a documentary about the 1980s rock band Dev ...

on January 23, 2024. It premiered February 27, 2024, on

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

Premise

Chronicling the past, present, and future of

, from the perspective of three directors. Following the

prison industrial complex A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility where people are imprisoned under the authority of the state, usually as punishment for various crim ...

Huntsville Huntsville is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Alabama. The population of the city is estimated to be 241,114 in 2024, making it the 100th-most populous city in the U.S. The Huntsville metropolitan area had an estimated 525,465 ...

, the energy industry in

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

, and the humanity and healing following the

2019 El Paso shooting On August 3, 2019, a mass shooting occurred at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, United States. The gunman, 21-year-old Patrick Wood Crusius, shot 45 people, killing 23 and injuring 22 others. The Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated ...

El Paso El Paso (; ; or ) is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States. The 2020 United States census, 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the List of ...

Episodes

Production

In June 2014, it was announced ''God Save Texas'' was in development at

, with

set to write, based upon his play ''Sonny’s Last Shot'', and

Lauren Shuler Donner Lauren Diane Shuler Donner (born June 23, 1949) is an American film producer, who specializes in mainstream youth and family-oriented entertainment. She owned The Donners' Company with her late husband, director Richard Donner. Her films have ...

set to executive produce. In March 2022, it was announced the project was instead a documentary-series with

set to direct an episode, with Wright still attached as executive producer, and

Alex Gibney Philip Alexander Gibney (; born October 23, 1953) is an American documentary film director and producer. In 2010, ''Esquire'' magazine said Gibney "is becoming the most important documentarian of our time." Gibney's works as director include ''T ...

set to executive produce. While directing the episode, Linklater went on a process of search and discovery, determining an excessive amount of his high school football teammates ended up incarcerated by the

in Texas.

Reception

The

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

reported an 100% approval rating based on 5 critic reviews. On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the series has a weighted average score of 84 out of 100, based on 4 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

References

External links

* {{HBONetwork Shows HBO original programming HBO documentary films 2024 American television series debuts 2020s American documentary television series