FILM · 1998 · USA
Buffalo '66
- Directed by
- Vincent Gallo
- Runtime
- 110 min
- Studio
- Gray Daisy Films, Muse Productions
21 archived facts 6 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
Billy is released after five years in prison. In the next moment, he kidnaps teenage student Layla and visits his parents with her, pretending she is his girlfriend and they will soon marry.
Summary: TMDB
All facts (21)
- #001
The house where Billy Brown's parents live in the film is the same house Vincent Gallo grew up in with his parents.
- #002
Original cinematographer Dick Pope was fired during pre-production because he objected to Vincent Gallo's decision to shoot on reversal film. Gallo considered serving as his own cinematographer, but the bond company insuring the film would not allow it. Gallo then hired Lance Acord, who was a non-union cinematographer at the time and had never shot a feature film before.
- #003
Of the $1.5 million budget, $20,000 was spent on Anjelica Huston's wig alone.
- #004
During a 2017 interview, when a reporter asked Christina Ricci whether working with Vincent Gallo on this film was difficult, she said her mother, who was to chaperone her, insisted on staying away during the shoot and then regularly yelled at her during filming. When the reporter asked whether such a situation (a very young woman working alone with someone creepily creepy) would be allowed on sets these days, Ricci replied: "Just because he's bad at hiding it doesn't mean other people are really good at hiding it. Everyone is creepy. He just talks about it very loudly. And he's not even that creepy. He's just kind of a dirtbag, but not lecherous."
- #005
Mickey Rourke was going through difficult times both career-wise and financially. According to an interview, Rourke stated that Gallo offered him a small role in the film and paid him with a paper bag containing $100,000.
- #006
Christina Ricci choreographed the step dancing in the bowling alley scene.
- #007
Gallo decided to shoot on reversal stock (the color transparency film equivalent — expensive both to buy and to process) without even knowing whether the stock was available in 35 mm or whether any lab could develop it.
- #008
Kevin Corrigan initially turned down the role of Goon because it made him uncomfortable. He later changed his mind and asked for the role back. Gallo had hired another actor to play the part but fired him and rehired Corrigan. After filming, Corrigan was still uncomfortable with his performance and asked not to be credited.
- #009
Although Lance Acord is widely credited with the film's distinctive visual style, Vincent Gallo is credited with designing much of the film's cinematography. He also publicly belittled Acord, saying, "This guy had no ideas, no conceptual ideas, no aesthetic point of view."
- #010
Christina Ricci said of working with Vincent Gallo: "I was seventeen, yeah. It was my first film away from home without my mom. It wasn't a smart choice. A lot of the time I didn't really understand what was happening, working with a crazy madman. I'd never encountered that much craziness… He's one of those people who is sometimes really nice to you and then imagines you've done something terrible and starts yelling at you. It's hard to keep going. So, someone like that." When asked if she saw Gallo's next film The Brown Bunny (2003), she responded, "Oh, I didn't see it, I'm not interested in seeing anything he does again."
- #011
The character Scott Woods is a reference to Scott Norwood, the Buffalo Bills kicker who missed the game-winning kick in Super Bowl XXV.
- #012
When Billy (Vincent Gallo) tries to drive Layla's (Christina Ricci) car, he discovers it is a manual transmission and gets angry because he does not know how to use a stick shift. Ironically, Ricci did not know how to drive a stick shift and kept stalling the car during filming, which made Gallo very angry at her.
- #013
Jan is shown to have a fanatical obsession with the Buffalo Bills. This most likely means he named his son "Billy" (or gave him that nickname, assuming his birth name was William) after his favorite football team.
- #014
Part of Billy Brown's dialogue with Layla in the car can be heard played backwards in M83's song "I'm Getting Closer."
- #015
Ben Gazzara improvised the part at the dinner table where he buries his face between Christina Ricci's breasts, and it was kept in the release.
- #016
Anjelica Huston and Christina Ricci had previously played Morticia and Wednesday Addams together in The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family Values (1993).
- #017
At a post-screening Q&A for The Brown Bunny (2003) on August 2, 2004, Vincent Gallo was asked what Bud Clay's license plate number meant. Gallo said they meant nothing, and certainly no more than the ones in Buffalo '66; rather, they were absolutely meaningless, acknowledging that he had little or no control over the vehicle tags in either film. Gallo acknowledged the implied knowledge that the tags in Buffalo '66 were a tribute to Japanese filmmaker Yasujirō Ozu and that he did in fact appreciate the director and some of his films, but said he would never pay tribute to him, to any filmmaker, or to film in one of his own features. Gallo also underlined his displeasure with such trivial tricks, particularly in the work of other filmmakers, citing Spike Jonze and Wes Anderson as examples.
- #018
Vincent Gallo says the $200,000 he was paid for Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby (1999) (three days of work) went toward the production of the six songs featured in Buffalo '66.
- #019
The film is mentioned in Wet Leg's 2021 single "Wet Dream."
- #020
It was director Stephane Sednaoui who suggested that Vincent Gallo use cinematographer Lance Acord.
- #021
The bus Billy takes from prison is one of the last MCI MC-5 buses ever produced. This particular bus was originally supplied for service in Saudi Arabia, and it has a unique feature in the form of a second roof layer to help keep it cool (in addition to an upgraded air conditioner). These buses returned to the United States and continued in revenue service.
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