What Are Your Favorite Road Movies?

Ok. So he doesn't drive a car in North by Northwest.

But it still isn't a road movie. Or a car movie.

Why is it in your list? ^^ Just wondering.

I was remembering Cary Grant driving a car in to catch a thief. Doh!

Of course North by Northwest is a road movie. Just wondering, what makes you think it doesn't qualify?

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I see the BFI has a guide devoted to the subject: 100 Road Movies (ISBN 9781844571604). It's already been released in the UK, though it doesn't hit American bookshelves until this August.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas


also...
Road Trip
Transamerica
Little Miss Sunshine

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J. Dsilva

Two-Lane Blacktop
Vanishing Point
Easy Rider
Planes, Trains & Automobiles
The Blues Brothers

and just for kicks, Smokey & the Bandit & Convoy.

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In July staring Moritz Bluetbieu and Y Tu Mama Tambien with Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, both amazing Road films for me.

I loved this movie too....much better than Zhang's other film The Curse of the Golden Flower. I know they're completely different...but I prefer the quiet character study, when you can get into the journey and feel something for that person, rather than watching an over-blown spectical.

I haven't seen Mongolian Ping Pong yet. I had it in my hand a few times, but ended up putting it back, for whatever reason. I'll look out for it again.

My top favorites...
It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963)
It Happened One Night (1934)
Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)
French Kiss (1995)
Lost in America (1985)
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (2006)


I also liked...
Genevieve (1953)
If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (1969)
The Dream Team (1989)
Bubble Boy (2001)...I know it’s a crap movie...but it still tickles me.


And...these might not be considered a ‘road movie’, but they have an important road trip in the movie.

Bread and Tulips(Pane e tulipani) (2000)...the road trip in the beginning sets up the story/journey.

Autumn Spring (Babí léto) (2001)...the road trip at the end made the movie for me. Very sweet.

And of course...



BORAT: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit
Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006 - Larry Charles)

I loved Easy Rider and Natural Born Killers, but my favourite would be 'Central Station', a really beautifull foreign film well worth a watch.

Oooo yes ^^^^ I loved Central Station I think I'll watch that movie soon, a beautiful Brazillian film and Road movie indeed, truely a movie that deserves to be watched once by everyone. Another road film I forgot to mention that I enjoyed was The Motorcycle Diaries.

With the price of gasoline rising higher and higher here in the U.S., it's probably a good Summer to stay close to home and watch a road movie or three instead of living one.

By the way, I did get that BFI Screen Guide like just a couple weeks after my last post, but I never came back to this thread with it. Their list, or rather U.K. critic Jason Wood's list, of 100 Road Movies is, alphabetically...

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)
Badlands (1973)
Bombón: el Perro (2004)
Bonnie & Clyde (1967)
Boys On the Side (1995)
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)
Broken Flowers (2005)
The Brown Bunny (2003)
Butterfly Kiss (1995)
Bye-Bye Brasil (1979)
Le Camion (1977)
Candy Mountain (1987)
The Cannonball Run (1980)
Catch Us if You Can (1965)
Cold Fever (1995)
Dear Diary (1994)
Detour (1945)
Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
"Duel" (1971)
Easy Rider (1969)
Exiles (2004)
Familia Rodante (2004)
Five Easy Pieces (1970)
Galivant (1996)
Get On the Bus (1996)
The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty Kick (1971)
Le Grand Voyage (2004)
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Guantanamera (1995)
Gun Crazy (1949)
The Hit (1984)
In This World (2002)
Jizda (1994)
Journey to the Sun (1999)
Kalifornia (1993)
Kikujiro (1999)
Kings of the Road (1976)
Koktebel (2003)
Landscape in the Mist (1988)
The Last Detail (1973)
Last Orders (2001)
The Last Run (1971)
The Leather Boys (1964)
Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989)
The Living End (1992)
Lost in America (1985)
Mad Max 2 aka The Road Warrior (1981)
Merci la Vie (1991)
Messidor (1978)
Midnight Run (1988)
Minimal Stories (2002)
The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)
My Own Private Idaho (1991)
Natural Born Killers (1994)
Near Dark (1987)
North On Evers (1992)
One False Move (1991)
Out to the World (1994)
Paper Moon (1973)
The Passenger (1975)
Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)
Poetic Justice (1993)
Powwow Highway (1988)
Radio On (1979)
Raising Arizona (1987)
Red Lights (2004)
The Return (2003)
Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (2005)
Road to Morocco (1942)
Roadside Prophets (1992)
The Searchers (1956)
S.E.R. - Freedom is Paradise (1989)
Sherman's March (1985)
Sideways (2004)
Simple Men (1992)
Soft Top, Hard Shoulder (1992)
La Strada (1954)
The Straight Story (1999)
Stranger Than Paraidse (1984)
The Sugarland Express (1974)
Sullivan's Travels (1941)
The Sure Thing (1985)
Thelma & Louise (1991)
Thieves Like Us (1973)
Thunder Road (1958)
Thunderbolt & Lightfoot (1974)
Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)
Vagabond (1985)
Les Valseuses - Going Places (1974)
Vanishing Point (1971)
Vendredi Soir - Friday Night (2002)
El Viaje (1991)
Voyage to Italy (1955)
The Wages of Fear (1953)
Week-End (1967)
Where is My Friend's House? (1987)
Wild Strawberries (1957)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Wolf Creek (2005)
Y tu Mamá También (2001)

Any such undertaking is going to have its omissions and head scratchers, and for my taste he's gone too far in looking for international examples at the expense of some truly seminal works. Not that Oscar-winning Best Pictures It Happened One Night (1934) and Rain Man (1988) need a lot of help to raise their profiles, but not including them to me is like a list of the one hundred greatest home run hitters Major League Baseball has ever seen and not including Babe Ruth and Reggie Jackson - it just makes you sound silly. A few more from my list on the previous page I'm a little shocked didn't make it are Paris, Texas (1984), A Perfect World (1993), Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) and Bound for Glory (1976). But on the other hand, from the book's list I'm embarrassed I forgot Bergman's Wild Strawberries and most glaringly for me Aki Kaurismäki's wonderful Leningrad Cowboys Go America which introduced me to that great Finnish filmmaker. But how, say, The Cannonball Run is chosen over Smokey & the Bandit puzzles me, and I wish the lesser-known but personal favorites of Scarecrow (1973), Highway 61 (1991) and The Music of Chance (1993) had been highlighted in the BFI book. I guess I'll have to highlight them myself.

When I first spotted this topic, I thought maybe some one was going to discuss all of those Hope-Crosby films, but then I came back down to reality! I was glad to see Pike listed The Straight Story and Two for the Road, two of my personal favorites. And I don't know what to say to someone who would exclude North by Northwest from the list, especially considering the distance traveled and the many modes of transportation used--car, taxi, train, airplane. For that matter, Forrest Gump covered a lot of territory and a bunch of it on foot as a jogger. As for Hope and Crosby, I don't know how many of those Road pictures they made together, but they come close to being the original "roadies."

One of my personal favorites is the original Of Mice and Men about two men on the road who make a brief pause at this farm. I don't remember everything on Pike's list, so he may have listed The Wild One, too. Like M&M, the story of a pause in a trip. High Sierra and its two remakes are essentially road stories.

What about road pictures before there were roads? Would The Way West, The Last Wagon, Westward the Women, Union Pacific, How the West Was Won, and Pony Express count?

Oh, one I just remembered that I don't think has been listed--Bus Stop.

Can you have road pictures that are not on land? Like Moby Dick, Wake of the Red Witch, The World in his Arms, and Plymouth Adventure?

Does Rain Man count?

Little Miss Sunshine was good.

Some of my favorite movies that revolve around the road:

Easy Rider
Two-Lane Black Top
Some Like it Hot

I like to watch scary movies while I'm on the road that have something to do with traveling.
Rest Stop
Vacancy
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (remake)
The Hills Have Eyes
Hitcher
Hostel

Really really pleased Butterfly Kiss got a mention along side The Straight Story, Y Tu Mama Tambien & Thelma & Louise... Is TransAmerica... not a road movie?

I like Butterfly Kiss a lot too, though if forced to pick just one Road Movie from Michael Winterbottom I'd go with In This World. Luckily I'm not forced to make such a choice. I think Witterbottom is a very underrated filmmaker. Perhaps his working in so many different genres without a single overwhelming narrative or visual style is keeping him from becoming better known? It's possible even if somebody has seen a few of his movies that they simply haven't realized the same fella is responsible for The Claim, 24 Hour Party People, Code 46, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, Wonderland, Jude, A Mighty Heart, In This World and Butterfly Kiss.


It most definitely is. I have it on my list on the previous page. In terms of the BFI Screen Guide book, it was published in early 2007 but probably compiled and turned in to the publisher back in 2006 sometime. Transamerica premiered in the U.K. in October of 2005 at the London Film Festival, but didn't get a regular U.K. release until March of 2006, so it's possible the man who compiled the list hadn't even seen it yet.

That's one problem with publishing a book on such a subject, that as soon as you've gone to press and made it to the bookshelves there are already other newer movies to choose from. Three movies released in 2005 made the British Film Institute's guide, Jarmusch's Broken Flowers, Zhang Yimou's Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles and the Aussie horror flick Wolf Creek, but nothing later than that, though he does mention 2006's Little Miss Sunshine in his introduction.

But yeah, Transamerica is a good one, too. My review for it on this site can be found HERE.

I'm going to list one that hasn't been mentioned...



Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (Mike Judge, 1996)

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