The Laramie Project

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Moisés Kaufman directs. Terry Stacey behind the camera. Peter Golub scores. Brian A. Kates cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

• 1Released 24 years ago.
• 2Directed by Moisés Kaufman, shot by Terry Stacey. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
• 3Original score by Peter Golub. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
• 4Editor Brian A. Kates shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
• 5Dylan Baker and Tom Bower and Clancy Brown carry the top of the cast.
• 6Marketing tagline: "Everyone carries a piece of the truth.".
• 7IMDB entry: tt0257850 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
• 8Only 63 TMDB ratings — you're getting ahead of the curve on this one.
• 9Classified under 9 themes, including "small town", "wyoming, usa", "homophobia", "sexuality".

The technical file

Cinematography

Terry Stacey

Original score

Peter Golub

Editing

Brian A. Kates

Production design

Dan Leigh

Costume design

Katie Saunders

Makeup / hair

Jeannete Sörensen Hickok

Runtime

95 min · 1h 35m

Status

Released

Original language

EN

IMDB

The Laramie Project (2002) ↗

Rotten Tomatoes

92% 🍅 Fresh

IMDB rating

7.1/10 · 7,321 votes

MPAA

TV-14

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

• 

  ▶
  The Laramie Project (2001) Trailer | Moises Kaufman

  Trailer

Community reviews

What people are saying

• CinemaSerf2026-07-02
  ★ 6/10

  If you're at all familiar with the television movie made about the brutal slaughter of Matthew Shepard from 2002, you'll already know why New York's Tectonic Theatre Company descended upon the town of Laramie. Home to just shy of 30,000 citizens, this town has been rocked by the recent homophobic attack on a twenty-one year old man by two young men who pistol whipped him before tying him to a fence in a nearby field and leaving him to die of his wounds and of hypothermia. The actors/writers have decided to theatrically recreate some of this story and so are travelling the length and breadth of the town seeking interviews with the residents - all whilst the town deals with it's own feelings of anger and guilt and whilst their courthouse tries the two men who are accused of perpetrating the crime. The timeline here begins whilst Shepard is still alive - comatose, but still alive, and by using a combination of news actuality and some poignant acting contributions from the likes of Dylan Baker (his doctor) and the usually quite effective Kathleen Chalfant this tries to get into the inner thoughts of a community that is largely, though not exclusively, disgusted by the behaviour of two young men. There's a lot of "this couldn't happen here" going on; a fair degree of public protest and a few reminders that "faggots will die in hell" from folks who didn't consider the murder of a gay lad to be such an heinous crime. Indeed, one individual suggested that he hoped the severely injured man used his last few moments of consciousness to reflect on his "lifestyle". It's grim stuff, mostly, and it serves to showcase just how a veneer of tolerance and acceptability can be smashed when drunken frenzy takes hold. Sadly, though, the construction of this film is a bit all over the place and I found the hybrid style of it's production left me uncertain as to what was real and what was derived from some fairly painful transcriptions. Of course, those do give a contemporaneousness to the storytelling but they also serve to provide a load of extra opinions that distract a little from the thrust of a story of three families - one of the victim, two of the killers themselves, which is left a little undeveloped. It also looks at the role of religion and faith, of community and of forgiveness and as the deceased man's father puts it at the end, perhaps it illustrates that from this crime might an healing process begin that extends beyond their own homes? It could have made for a better documentary than a docu-drama, I think.

  Read full review ↓

Production companies

Who made it

• 

  HBO

  US

• CA

  Cane/Gabay Productions

• 

  Good Machine

  US

Key crew

• Art DirectionTim Duffy
• Co-Executive ProducerPeter Du Cane
• Production DesignDan Leigh
• Assistant Makeup ArtistJeannete Sörensen Hickok
• Key Hair StylistRosanne Reid
• Key Makeup ArtistClaus Lulla
• Makeup ArtistLaura Van Wagner
• Costume DesignKatie Saunders
• Set DecorationPaul Sjoberg
• HairstylistLaura Lee R. Frye
• Assistant HairstylistTanya Barnes
• Executive ProducerRoss Katz
• ProducerDeclan Baldwin
• Executive ProducerAnne Carey
• EditorBrian A. Kates
• CastingAnn Goulder
• Executive ProducerTed Hope
• Co-Executive ProducerRoy Gabay

Themes & keywords

What it's about, really

• small town
• wyoming, usa
• homophobia
• sexuality
• interview
• murder
• lgbt
• candlelight vigil
• gay theme

Release history · US

When it landed

• Premiere2002-01-10· Sundance Film Festival
• TV2002-03-09