A story, although fabricated, is very loosely according to the real-life slaying fling of Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, in 1958.

Malick's hurt script & masterful compositions, Tak Fujimoto's lush cinematography, and mesmeric performances by its deuce leads combine to elevate the film to a level of ocular poetry that belies its sordid subject matter.

A film's score makes perennial utilize of a short composition from either the didactical works of Carl Orff. A equivalent piece was wont to expert symptom in the film True Romance, which has some thematic similarities to Badlands.

A film is involved in the National Film Registry.