Time to get the show on the road
Sullivan’s Travels ( 1941): Filmmaker Preston Sturges tells the story of a Hollywood director who feels like a phoney. To become more genuine in his storytelling, he goes on the road as a hobo. Sullivan says he wants to find out “how it feels to be in trouble, without friends, without credit, without chequebook, without name, alone.” Bonnie and Clyde ( 1967): This Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway classic is perhaps just as entertaining 50 years after its release. It’s based on the true story of bored waitress Bonnie Parker and ex- con Clyde Barrow, who set off on the road, robbing banks and stealing cars, falling in love along the way.
The Rain People ( 1969): One of Francis Ford Coppola’s earlier films, it follows a Long Island housewife who hits the road after finding out she’s pregnant. Coppola’s technique of using flashbacks of the characters’ previous lives is a clever way to illustrate what each has left behind and how even on the road we never escape ourselves. Alice i n the Cities ( 1974): The best- known of Wim Wenders’s road trip trilogy, this film follows a German journalist assigned to write about the American landscape. A turn of events then finds him chaperoning a young girl in Europe. Neither enjoys the burden: She’s complainy, he’s impatient, and money’s running out. But they find fun and eventually, friendship.
The Sugarland Express
( 1 974): Starring Goldie Hawn, who helps her husband escape from prison and attempts to kidnap their son. One of Steven Spielberg’s lesser- known movies for a reason, it may be the only road film with a piglet in the car, and it’s worth watching just to hear “bad hombre” in 1970s dialogue.
Paris, Texas ( 1984): Directed by Wim Wenders, starring Harry Dean Stanton and Nastassja Kinski, Paris follows a drifter who gets reacquainted with his family after years of being MIA. He takes one road trip with his brother and another with his son. Expect slow dialogue, vast landscapes, complex characters and some of the most delightful father- son interactions in film.
Kalifornia ( 1993): It gets awkward when you have to ask one of your passengers how many people he’s killed. David Duchovny plays a journalist touring serial killer murder sites with his photographer girlfriend. They rideshare with Brad Pitt, playing a redneck on parole who plants a Jesus figurine on the dashboard, and Juliette Lewis, playing the redneck’s girlfriend who performs yoyo tricks at every stop.
True Romance ( 1993): Written by Quentin Tarantino, the film stars Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette, whose characters head to California to sell cocaine stolen in Detroit. The road trip is a small, but not insignificant, part of the narrative. Cameos by Dennis Hopper, Val Kilmer, Brad Pitt, Christopher Walken, James Gandolfini and Samuel L. Jackson. Y Tu Mama Tambien ( 2001): In Mexico, two teenage boys and a playful older woman they barely know all leave their significant others behind and set off for the beach in a clunker. By lunch the first day, they’re drinking beers and talking about sex. Starring Gael Garcia Bernal, who road- tripped again in The Motorcycle Diaries in 2004. Captain Fantastic ( 2016): Viggo Mortensen’s character is living off the grid in the Pacific Northwest, teaching his six children how to survive with nothing but a knife. They set out on a road trip in an old school bus.