COUNTRY COMES TO HOLLYWOOD
There have been lots of country singers in lots of movies.  Most are pretty awful.  They’re like a paraphrase of the old nursery rhyme about the little girl with the little curl: When they are good they are very, very good, but when they are bad they are horrid.
Almost all of them are decent actors; they just don’t show up in good movies very often. Jerry Reed (11 movies), Mel Tillis (2), Roger Miller (2), Marty Robbins (3), Waylon Jennings (3), Faron Young (2), Merle Haggard (2), Johnny Cash (9), Kenny Rogers (10), Reba McEntire (4) and Randy Travis (11) have never been in a movie you would want to watch, even at gunpoint.
But the exceptions are big ones. Dwight Yoakam almost steals Billy Bob Thornton’s quirky Sling Blade (1996) as a hateful, abusive bully. Mr. Yoakam also shines in the noirish Red Rock West (1993) with Nicholas Cage as a drifter mistaken for a hit man and Dennis Hopper as the real thing.
While Dolly Parton isn’t going to be mistaken for Meryl Streep or Susan Sarandon (for more reasons than two!), she can be quite affecting and sweet. 9 To 5 (1980) is terrific fun, with Jane Fonda and Lilly Tomlin pitching in as erstwhile kidnappers of their dreadful boss (Dabney Coleman). Ms. Parton is just right as the gossipy small-town beauty shop owner in Steel Magnolias (1989), an excellent chick flick with Sally Field, Julia Roberts, Shirley MacLaine and Daryl Hannah as the other chicks. 
Kris Kristofferson is now viewed more as an actor than as the country singer he once was. He has made a couple of dozen loserss, but he was in the excellent Lone Star (1995) with Chris Cooper as the sheriff of a small Texas town with a dark secret. Mr. Kristofferson is fine as a comedic pro football player in the easy-going Semi-Tough (1977), and as the good-guy love interest in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Any More (1974).
Poor Glen Campbell, who seems like such a sweet guy, is in the final stages of Alzheimer’s. His movie career is littered with forgettable dogs- except he had quite a good turn as LaBoeuf (Rooster Cogburn’s companion) in the first True Grit (1969). That’s the one for which John Wayne got his Oscar. By the way, the second one, with Jeff Bridges, is also good. 
Perhaps the most surprising entrant in this category is Willie Nelson, the best actor in the bunch. Mr. Nelson is a superb outlaw in Barbarosa (1982), an amusing character in the hilarious Wag The Dog (1997), and he carries the underrated Honeysuckle Rose (1980) which is about, of all things, a country singer!
And no, the beautiful Ashley Judd is not a country singer, though her mother and sister certainly are.
All of the movies in this article are available on DVD and for streaming. All are suitable for 12 and up.