The Burning Plain is a 2008 American drama film directed and written by Guillermo Arriaga and starring Charlize Theron, Jennifer Lawrence, Kim Basinger and Joaquim de Almeida. In Arriaga's directorial debut, he films a story that has multipart story strands woven together as in his previous screenplays. Filming of The Burning Plain began in New Mexico in November 2007, and the film was released in late 2008 in various festivals, before a limited theatrical release in 2009. The film was a critical and commercial failure.