Top 5 Road Trip Movies

Matt

In our second podcast, we got the idea for Top 5 road trip movies. This is a fitting list for Thanksgiving, since many of us will be doing a great deal of travel. Enjoy!

5. Pee-wee’s Big Adventure: This was one of my favorite movies as a kid. It has all the makings of a great road trip flick, with the added bonus of a seemingly unlimited amount of gags and bits with Pee-wee’s silly and smart innocence that strikes at the core of children and adults. Pee-wee heads to El Paso in hopes of finding his beloved stolen bicycle — making friends with bikers, hopping a trains and joining the rodeo.

4. Planes Trains and Automobiles: Is a charming movie that showcases Steve Martin and John Candy at their finest in this movie that plays off of their acting skills brilliantly. Martin plays a man trying to get home to his family for the holidays while Candy plays a  man with no home, a salesman with nothing in the world. Plenty of hilarious moments, including the one in the following clip (warning: strong language).

3. Easy Rider: Is a film that defined actors Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda and set a tone for filmmakers of their generation. With cash from a cocaine sale, free-wheelers Billy and Wyatt — played by Hopper and Fonda — hop on their motorcycles and ride across America toward New Orleans. Along the way, they add boozy lawyer George to their trouble-finding, society-questioning entourage. Hopper directed and co-wrote the film with Fonda. It was a landmark 1960s counterculture film. Jack Nicholson earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his role as George.

2. Rain Man: This film had fantastic performances by Dustin Hoffman (who won an Oscar) and Tom Cruise in what is a very simple film layered in complex family relationships, escaping reality, and finding out what’s important. The movie is spent on the road, with interesting twists and turns along the way as two brothers who don’t know each other — one with autism — who hit the road after Cruise’s character springs Hoffman’s from his home for the disabled.

1. The Wizard of Oz: This is a phenomenal piece of film — from its vast sets, costumes and musicals, to its performances and ability to endure time. This is the ultimate road trip — going over the rainbow and back again, with charming characters, universal, lasting messages and sense of humor that takes the dark edge off the film. This is a movie that will endure forever, making it the most successful movie on this list, hands down.