The film stars Billy Crudup and Samantha Morton, with Holly Hunter, Dennis Hopper, Denis Leary, Will Patton, John Ventimiglia, Michael Shannon, and Jack Black in supporting roles.

I was stunned by the force of Johnson’s vision and language and the way he transformed the bleak and the ordinary into little epiphanies that are beautiful, poetic and really funny.”[2] Jesus’ Son was shot in Philadelphia over seven weeks beginning on January 14, 1999.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 79% from 52 reviews with the consensus: "Slight yet ultimately absorbing, Jesus' Son makes effective use of its period setting and talented ensemble cast.

True to her source, Ms. Maclean tells the young man's story in a looping, absent-minded manner, skittering ahead and then scrambling backward to fill in forgotten details.

Her decision to string together a series of self-contained vignettes could have resulted in meandering tedium, but she manages to find a loose, improvisatory rhythm that matches Mr. Johnson's discursive riffing, and that gives her scenes a keen edge of surprise.

He's like Candide strung out on every drug he can find, or an itinerant holy man hitchhiking across the Midwest in wet, filthy hipster hand-me-downs.