Pitt was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma, to Southern Baptist parents William A. Pitt and Jane Etta Hillhouse. The Pitt family is mainly of English descent.[citation needed] He and his two siblings, Doug Pitt and Julie Neal Pitt, grew up in Springfield, Missouri, where the family moved soon after his birth. Pitt's parents and siblings still live in Springfield, attending James River Assembly in Ozark, Missouri.

At Kickapoo High School, Pitt was involved in sports, debating, student government, and school musicals. He attended the Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri - Columbia where he became a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity. He was two credits shy of graduating with a journalism degree when he left to try his luck in Hollywood.

No Man's Land, Less Than Zero, Happy Together, Cutting Class, Across the Tracks, Thelma & Louise, Johnny Suede, Contact, Cool World, A River Runs Through It, Kalifornia, True Romance, The Favor, Interview with the Vampire, Legends of the Fall, Se7en, Twelve Monkeys, Sleepers, The Devil's Own, Seven Years in Tibet, The Dark Side of the Sun, Meet Joe Black, Being John Malkovich, Fight Club, Snatch, The Mexican, Spy Game, Ocean's Eleven, Full Frontal, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, Abby Singer, Troy, Ocean's Twelve, Special Thanks to Roy London, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Babel, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Ocean's Thirteen