By Gary Bennett
Art certainly does imitate life, especially when it comes to roadtrips. There are so many great roadtrip movies because Americans really love a good roadtrip. It seems to be baked into us.
There’s something magical about hitting the open road with endless possibilities in front of you and the mundane, workaday world behind, at least for a little while. Seeing new places, meeting new people, and enjoying new adventures are the promises of the all-American roadtrip.
The joys and tribulations of roadtrips are well depicted on the silver screen. Folks of the Greatest Generation remember the start of it all with the many “Road to” movies of the ’40s and ‘50s, starring Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. This series of zany musical comedies took the audience to exotic places like Singapore, Zanzibar and Morocco. We were hooked.
Then, in 1957, Jack Kerouac published his seminal novel “On the Road,” that glorified the carefree and adventurous travels of two friends deeply engrained in the counterculture movement. It captured the imagination of a new generation of travelers.
Shortly after that, in the ‘60s, construction began in earnest on the Eisenhower Interstate System that made it possible to travel safely and comfortably for long distances by car, even coast to coast if one wanted. Ever since, Americans have been off and running, planning their very own roadtrip adventures with friends or family.
With spring comes the unmistakable itch for adventure, but before you start planning your own getaway, settle in with a great roadtrip movie or two to amp up your excitement — or maybe temper your expectations a little bit, too.
10. BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967)
Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman
This true, cult-classic story starts out with the lovable rogues trying to steal their way out of the Great Depression, town by town, cross-country, but ends in the bloodiest shootout the movies had ever seen.
“When we started out … I thought we were really going somewhere. But this is it. We’re just going.”
9. THE MUPPET MOVIE (1979)
Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear
The delightful, smart-alecky animated gang make their way from Florida to California so Kermit can begin his Hollywood career.
Kermit: “Where did you learn to drive?”
Fozzie: “I took a correspondence course.”
8. SIDEWAYS (2004)
Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church
A winding trip around California’s wine country allows two friends to explore their love lives and bond before one is to marry.
At a gas station: “I’ll take a Barely Legal, please. Uh, no, the new one.”
7. HAROLD & KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE (2004)
John Cho, Kal Penn
Two friends get stoned and set off in search of a highly prized White Castle restaurant deep into the New Jersey backroads trying to avoid trouble along the way.
“You wouldn’t happen to know how to get on the highway from here, would you?”
“Dude, I don’t even know where the f— I am right now.”
6. ROAD TRIP (2000)
Seann William Scott, Breckin Meyer
A guy mistakenly videotapes his risqué affair and then somehow mails it to his girlfriend 2,000 miles away. They set out in his car to get the video before she does.
Looking at a broken bridge: “Hey, it’s 10 feet. Bob Hope could jump this in his golf cart. See? Watch. I can spit across it.”
5. GREEN BOOK (2018)
Viggo Mortensen, Mahershala Ali
A white man and Black man develop an unexpected friendship as they drive around the segregated South during the Black man’s piano concert tour.
“I ain’t worried about nothin’ … in fact, when you see me worried, you’ll know.”
4. PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES (1987)
Steve Martin, John Candy
This feel-good comedy classic throws together two lovable but bickering strangers trying to get home for Thanksgiving. Everything that can go wrong does.
State trooper: “Do you have any idea how fast you were going?”
Del Griffith (John Candy): “Funny enough, I was just talking to my friend about that. Our speedometer melted [from a small fire], and as a result it’s very hard to see with any degree of accuracy exactly how fast we were going.”
3. THELMA & LOUISE (1991)
Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis
This quintessential girl-buddy movie runs roughshod over men and other n’er-do-wells until the polar-opposite ladies meet their unexpected demise at the end.
“Look, you shoot off a guy’s head with his pants down. Believe me, Texas is not the place you wanna get caught.”
2. NATIONAL LAMPOON’S VACATION (1983)
Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo
Of the many vacation movies, we’ll stick with the original because it is the most endearing. A caring but buffoonish dad simply wants to take his family on a memorable vacation, but the universe conspires against him.
Considering his newly deceased aunt: “You want me to strap her to the hood? She’ll be fine. It’s not as if it’s going to rain or something.”
1. EASY RIDER (1969)
Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson
A truly great movie, “Easy Rider” was emblematic of ‘60s counterculture. Fonda and Hopper tool around on their choppers while smuggling cocaine from Mexico to Los Angeles.
“You know, this used to be a helluva good country. I can’t understand what’s gone wrong with it.”
Honorable Mentions: Almost Famous (2000), Bucket List (2007), Deliverance (1072), Duel (1971), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), Little Miss Sunshine (2006), Midnight Run (1988), Motorcycle Diaries (2004), Nomadland (2020), Paper Moon (1973), Rain Man (1988), Rat Race (2001), Smokey and the Bandit (1977), Straight Story (1999), Wild (2014) and Zombieland (2009).