The Trip to Bountiful is a 1985 American road drama film directed by Peter Masterson and starring Geraldine Page, John Heard, Carlin Glynn, Richard Bradford and Rebecca De Mornay.

The film, set in the post-World War II 1940s, tells the story of an elderly woman, Carrie Watts, who wants to return to her home, the small, rural, agriculture-based town of Bountiful near the Texas Gulf coast between Houston and Corpus Christi, where she grew up, but she's frequently stopped from leaving Houston by her daughter-in-law and her overprotective son, who will not let her travel alone.

Long-term out-migration was caused by the draw-down of all the town's able-bodied men to the wartime draft calls and by the demand for industrial workers in the war production plants of the big cities.

"[3] Vincent Canby of The New York Times described it as a "funny, exquisitely performed film adaptation of [Foote's] own play" and wrote of Page, "Her Mrs. Watts is simultaneously hilarious and crafty, sentimental and unexpectedly tough."

"[4] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times similarly observed that "Page inhabits the central role with authority and vinegar," writing, "She's not just a sweet and gentle little old lady.

"[5] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times further remarked, "Carrie [Watts] is a performance, a precisely conceived and calculated turn by a gifted professional always aware of what she is doing and the effects she's creating.

But the test of acting always is that you forget this, surrendering to the certainty that you have been transported back to 1947 and that dark apartment, and are then riding the bus toward Bountiful in the company of this warm and loving old woman.

[8][9] On April 12, 2005, MGM released The Trip to Bountiful on DVD in region 1 US in both a widescreen and a full-frame format on a two-sided disc.