--- title: "Urban Cowboy" year: 1980 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/urban-cowboy" fi1m_id: "urban-cowboy" imdb_id: "tt0081696" tmdb_id: 17496 wikidata_id: "Q538042" fi1m_score: 61 critics_score: 52 critics_reviews: 5 published: "2026-10-04T16:55:17.238487+00:00" updated: "2026-10-04T16:55:17.790655+00:00" region: "NL" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Urban Cowboy (1980) Directed by James Bridges · 2h 12m · Drama, Romance, Western ## Identity Urban Cowboy - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/urban-cowboy - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** urban-cowboy - **IMDb ID:** tt0081696 - **TMDB ID:** 17496 - **Wikidata ID:** Q538042 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081696/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/17496, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q538042 **Fi1m score: 61** · Critics 52 (early) from 5 reviews *In a sentence:* He rides a machine to prove he is a man; his wife rides it better and the film never quite forgives her > James Bridges builds a real place out of a Texas honky-tonk and its mechanical bull, then fills it with a soap opera about a sulking husband. Debra Winger is the reason to stay; John Travolta, top billed, is the reason you might not. ## Synopsis Pasadena, Texas, where the refineries run up against the suburbs. Bud Davis (John Travolta) drives in from Spur to lodge with his Uncle Bob (Barry Corbin) and Aunt Corene (Brooke Alderson) and take a job at the petrochemical plant. His nights go to Gilley’s, a honky-tonk the size of an aircraft hangar, where Mickey Gilley and Johnny Lee play and the regulars dance in hats. There he meets Sissy (Debra Winger), who asks him whether he is a real cowboy, and within weeks they are married and living in a trailer. Then Gilley’s installs a mechanical bull, and Wes (Scott Glenn), fresh out of prison, is the man who runs it. Bud wants to be the best rider in the place; Sissy wants to ride too. ## Review James Bridges directs *Urban Cowboy* from a script he wrote with Aaron Latham, based on Latham’s Esquire article, and the idea is a good one. The men of Pasadena, Texas, work shifts at the petrochemical plant by day and by night put on hats and boots and go to Gilley’s, a club the size of a warehouse, to be the cowboys their grandfathers were. There are no cattle, so the club buys a mechanical bull. The film runs 132 minutes and about half of it is as good as that idea deserves. The other half is a soap opera about a sulky young man, and the sulky young man is top billed. The place is the first thing you remember. Reynaldo Villalobos shoots Gilley’s in brown light and cigarette haze, neon beer signs over the bar, and he keeps the camera low enough that the hats fill the frame. Stephen B. Grimes gives the club its pool tables and its bull in a padded pen, and gives Bud and Sissy a trailer so small that an argument in it has nowhere to go. Gloria Gresham dresses everyone in pearl-snap shirts and straw hats, and the costumes do a good deal of the work. Mickey Gilley, Johnny Lee and Bonnie Raitt play themselves on the bandstand, and David Rawlins cuts the dancing to the band’s tempo and lets whole verses play. For long stretches the film is simply a good night out. Debra Winger is the second thing you remember, and she is better than the film. Sissy asks Bud on their first meeting whether he is a real cowboy, and Winger plays it as a dare rather than a chat-up line. She plays the marriage the same way. When she first climbs onto the bull and rides it slowly with the whole club watching, we sat up and forgot the plot entirely; it is the one scene in which the film seems to know what its machine is for. Bridges and Latham then spend an hour making her pay for it, and we minded. John Travolta is the problem, and not all of it is his fault. Bud is written as a man who cannot say what he feels and hits things instead, and Travolta plays him with his jaw set and his eyes down. In [*Saturday Night Fever*](https://film.one/film/saturday-night-fever) (1977) the dancing told you everything the character could not. Here the bull is meant to do that job and does not, because staying on a machine for eight seconds tells you only that a man can stay on a machine. He is good on the dance floor, where he loosens and grins, and a blank nearly everywhere else. The script asks him to do something ugly early on and expects us to go on rooting for him, and we did not. The rest of the cast is dealt out as plot. Scott Glenn’s Wes, fresh out of prison and the only man who can ride the bull properly, is lean and dangerous and given about four lines. Madolyn Smith Osborne’s Pam is a rich girl in a good coat who exists to make Sissy jealous, and the film barely pretends otherwise. Barry Corbin’s Uncle Bob is the warmest thing in it, a man who takes his nephew in without making a speech of it. Brooke Alderson’s Aunt Corene has a kitchen and not much else. The second half takes turns we will not describe, except to say that they are the ones you would guess, and that the film believes an argument about pride can be settled on a bull, which we do not. The harshest of the reviews we have read objects that the machine is asked to stand for manhood and cannot carry the weight, and we half agree; what spares the film is that Sissy rides it too, and rides it better. Bridges’s previous film, *The China Syndrome* (1979), was tight as a drum. This one wanders off, picks up a strand and drops it, and keeps going back to the club. Watch it for Gilley’s, for the band and for Winger, who is worth the evening on her own. The marriage comes free with the ticket, and feels like it. *Fi1m score 61, published 4 October 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is Urban Cowboy worth watching?** *Urban Cowboy* is worth watching for Gilley's, the band and Debra Winger, and we scored it 61. Reynaldo Villalobos's brown, smoky photography of the club and the live music from Mickey Gilley and Johnny Lee make half the film a good night out. The other half is a soap opera about a sulking husband, and John Travolta, top billed, is a blank in most of it. **How long is Urban Cowboy, and what is it rated?** *Urban Cowboy* runs 2h 12m. It is a drama and romance film. **Where can I watch Urban Cowboy in the Netherlands?** *Urban Cowboy* is available to rent from Amazon Prime Video from €2.99. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service. **How does Urban Cowboy compare to Saturday Night Fever?** *Urban Cowboy* is the weaker of Travolta's two working-man films, and [*Saturday Night Fever*](https://film.one/film/saturday-night-fever) is the one to see first. In the earlier film the dancing tells you everything the character cannot say; here the mechanical bull is meant to do that job and does not. Watch *Urban Cowboy* for Debra Winger, who is better than the film around her. **What should I watch after Urban Cowboy?** After *Urban Cowboy*, try [*Saturday Night Fever*](https://film.one/film/saturday-night-fever) (1977, Fi1m 78): Travolta’s other working man who only makes sense on a dance floor. Then [*Tender Mercies*](https://film.one/film/tender-mercies) (1983, Fi1m 86): A quieter Texas, a country singer, and Robert Duvall saying almost nothing; and [*Wild Rose*](https://film.one/film/wild-rose) (2018, Fi1m 82): Glasgow to Nashville; the country dream from the other side of the Atlantic. ### Reviews we read (5) - **The New York Times** (64/100, inferred): The available page does not expose the critic’s verdict. It provides no readable detail about what the review praises or criticizes. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1980/06/11/arts/travolta-urban-cowboy.html) - **Time Out**, DP (64/100, inferred): The page identifies itself as a review of the 1980 film, but the available text does not reveal the critic’s verdict. No specific praise or complaint is available to report. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/urban-cowboy) - **Radio Times**, Alan Jones (3/5): Jones calls the film an uneven country-and-western soap opera that ultimately sort of works. He singles out its music and honky-tonk setting as distinctive elements. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-b1yz8m/urban-cowboy/) - **Variety**, Variety Staff (60/100, inferred): The review is mixed, praising the film’s vivid sense of place while finding Travolta unconvincing. It singles out Gilley’s Club atmosphere and Debra Winger’s performance for praise. [Read](https://variety.com/1979/film/reviews/urban-cowboy-1200424578/) - **The New Yorker**, Pauline Kael (10/100, inferred): Kael delivers a sharply negative verdict, arguing that the film cannot escape the clumsy symbolism behind its story. She especially criticizes its attempt to turn Bud’s victory on the mechanical bull into a triumph of manhood. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1980/07/21/boys-and-girls) ## Details - **Director:** James Bridges - **Director:** James Bridges - **Screenplay:** James Bridges, Aaron Latham - **Cinematography:** Reynaldo Villalobos - **Editor:** David Rawlins - **Production design:** Stephen B. Grimes - **Costume design:** Gloria Gresham - **Producer:** Robert Evans, Irving Azoff - **Cast:** John Travolta as Bud Davis; Debra Winger as Sissy; Scott Glenn as Wes; Madolyn Smith Osborne as Pam; Barry Corbin as Uncle Bob; Brooke Alderson as Aunt Corene; Cooper Huckabee as Marshall; James Gammon as Steve Strange - **Runtime:** 2h 12m - **First release (the US):** 6 June 1980 - **Genres:** Drama, Romance, Western - **Budget:** $10 million - **Box office:** $53 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3tEUBsJGPs ## Where to watch in the Netherlands - Amazon Prime Video: rent €2.99, sd - Amazon Prime Video: buy €7.99, hd *Checked 2026-10-04.* Also available in: AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, GB, HR, IE, IN, IT, LT, MX, NL, NO, NZ, RO, RS, SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Saturday Night Fever* (1977), Fi1m 78: Travolta’s other working man who only makes sense on a dance floor. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/saturday-night-fever.md) - *Tender Mercies* (1983), Fi1m 86: A quieter Texas, a country singer, and Robert Duvall saying almost nothing. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/tender-mercies.md) - *Wild Rose* (2018), Fi1m 82: Glasgow to Nashville; the country dream from the other side of the Atlantic. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/wild-rose.md) - *The Last Picture Show* (1971), Fi1m 89: The small Texas town Bud is driving away from, filmed in black and white. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-last-picture-show.md) - *Paris, Texas* (1984), Fi1m 88: A German director’s Texas, all motel neon and men who cannot explain themselves. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/paris-texas.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/urban-cowboy