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Stockard Channing, Shane Meier, Sam Waterston, Kristen Thomson

This fact-based TV movie explores the story behind the infamous Matthew Shepard gay-bashing case, in which a Laramie, WY, college student was brutally murdered by a pair of local boys in 1998. Sam Wat... read more read more...erson and Stockard Channing star as Judy and Dennis Shepard, the parents whose agonizing decision over whether to ask for the death penalty for one of their son's killers provides the movie with its dramatic structure. Beginning with a slow-motion re-creation of the attack on young Matthew (Shane Meier), the script moves back in time to encompass the boy's troubled adolescent romance with another boarding-school student, his previous attack at the hands of a gang while on vacation, and his tentative shot at self-actualization among like-minded friends. These flashbacks are interspersed with the central drama, in which Shepard's parents sift through their son's belongings and slowly come to a surprising decision about what to say at his killer's trial. The Matthew Shepard Story premiered on NBC on March 12, 2002, a week after HBO's The Laramie Project first aired. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

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77% liked it

915 ratings

Unrated, 1 hr. 32 min.

Directed by: Roger Spottiswoode

Release Date: March 16, 2002

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DVD Release Date: June 1, 2010

Stats: 61 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (61)


  • August 6, 2008
    This was a good movie. I saw it on Lifetime and thought it was really sad. That kid who killed Matthew deserved the death penalty. He's begging for his life, it's so stupid because he should thought about that before he killed Matthew.
  • January 25, 2008
    Unbelievable that someone would take someone's life because of their insecurities and there hate toward others... gOD DID NOT PUT USE IN THIS WORLD TO KILL EACH OTHER! This should have never happened to someone just because of their sexual preference ignorance is not the way to t... read moreeach others...
  • November 23, 2007
    This movie shows how people with homophobia can not deal with their own sexuality less alone someone who is different. This move should be mandatory for all high schools. Maybe then it will stop if we catch it before it can start.

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