Like Willie Nelson said, I just can’t wait to be on the road again – from the comfort of my own home. I’m not going outside to see the sights! The outside is dirty! Have you seen the side of the highway? Filthy with trash! If I’m going to see what the country has to offer, I want to do it in my clean and sanitized living room. Adventure calls, and I’m ready to watch others answer – and what better way than cozying up with a road movie? Here are 10 of the best road movies of all time, for the wanderlusting homebody in you.
Y Tu Mama También
I’m going on record here to say that Alfonso Cuarón’s Y Tu Mama Tambien is the greatest road movie of all time, full stop. Set in Mexico, the plot follows two privileged high school boys who spend their summer doing whatever high school boys do – which in this case is jerking off into swimming pools. While at a party hosted by one of their hoitey-toitey families, they’re smitten by an older woman. Attempting to impress her, they tell her that they’re planning on taking a very mature and adult roadtrip to “Boca del Cielo” – a beach they made up on the spot. For her own secret reasons, the woman decides to hop in the backseat and stick along for the ride. While the film begins as a coming of age sexual drama, it soon blossoms into a tender exploration of life’s fragility and ever changing nature. Existence, after all, is a one way trip – the sights you’re see now will never come again, better enjoy them while they last.
Paris, Texas
Directed by Wim Wenders and penned by playwright Sam Shepard, Paris, Texas is a Neo-Western road movie masterpiece. The story begins with a man wandering the American wasteland, listless and free. After collapsing at a gas station, the wandering loner is revealed to have a brother – a successful advertising agent in Los Angeles. As the film goes on, it’s revealed that our perambulatory hero left his wife and son behind – his brother and his brother’s wife raised the child as their own. It’s an achingly beautiful story about the complex feelings that lie beneath the surface of every human being – feelings that could cause a man to walk out the door of his son’s life and never look back. He’s not a villain, he’s a person faced with overwhelming emotional circumstances – and he had no way to cope but the road.
Queen and Slim
A subversion of the “killer couple” trope that’s dominated road movies since Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate went on a real life cross country killing spree in the late 1950’s, Melina Matsouka’s Queen and Slim is a highway crime caper for the modern era. After a first date that both think will be their last, Queen and Slim are pulled over by an aggressive white cop, and end up killing him in self-defense. Wanted for murder, they criss-cross the country hoping to evade the authorities, but it’s only a matter of time until they’re caught. A commentary on racial justice (or the lack thereof) in United States, this film paints an all too familiar portrait of Black Americans who are unfairly villainized by a hostile justice system.
Nomadland
A love letter to wanderers everywhere, Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland exposes the free-wheelin’ beauty and hard realities faced by the growing population of Americans who live in vehicles. The plot follows a late middle-aged woman named Fern, who packs her belongings into a cargo van after her losing both her husband and her job. Criss-crossing the country in her built out rig, she finds community in a group of vehicle-dwellers living out in Arizona – where she learns valuable skills for living on the road. As the story continues, we get an intimate glimpse into Fern’s restless spirit – a look into the psyche of a woman searching for healing at the end of the highway. It’s a gorgeous elegy about the ones we’ve lost, and the beautiful and brutal truth that we learn in mourning: all we can do is keep on keeping on.
Badlands
Badlands by Terrence Malik is a retelling of the story of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate, two teenagers who traveled the country on a killing spree in the late 1950’s. Narrated by 15 year old Holly Sargis, we watch the young girl fall in love with James Dean lookalike Kit Carruthers – a 25 year old garbage collector and Korean War vet. After killing Holly’s abusive father, Kit takes Holly for a ride into the badlands of Montana to flee the law – murdering anyone he suspects might turn them in. You’ll be relieved to know that this film is not a romance, but a harrowing coming of age story about a teenager forced to grow up too fast.
Thelma and Louise
Thelma and Louise by Ridley Scott is the stuff of cinema history, hailed as one of the best films ever made. It’s the story of a titular pair of best friends who flee from the law after Louise shoots Thelma’s rapist dead. Their weekend vacation turns into a cross country manhunt as the two women attempt to escape the pursuing authorities, leading them to a famously climactic encounter with a very steep cliff. A heart pounder thriller that doubles as a love letter to female friendships (and subtextually, sapphic love) Thelma and Louise reminds us all of that one person in our lives who we would do anything for. Hopefully the inner Thelma in each of us has a Louise we can depend on – relationships like this are what makes life worth living.
Easy Rider
Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider is a strange one – a solid film that is heightened to cinematic excellence by its complete shocker of an ending. It’s the story of two motorcyclists who score the big bucks after schlepping Mexican cocaine to Arizona, and celebrate their success with an impromptu roadtrip to New Orleans. As the pair criss cross mid-century America, they pinball between the clean cut culture and the freewheelin’ counterculture. Running up against open hearted liberal hippies and hostile conservative good ol’ boys alike, the pair realize that like a Walt Whitman poem, the nation contains multitudes. It’s this cultural tension the explodes into the film’s ultimate tragedy – some people simply can’t agree to live and let live. A cultural reality to this day.
Into The Wild
Directed by Sean Penn, Into The Wild tells the real life story Chris McCandless, a free spirit who was taken too soon by the wilderness he loved. After graduating from a prestigious East Coast college, the affluent McCandless donated his savings to charity and departed in his Datsun – leaving no explanation for the parents and sister he left behind. The plot follows McCandless over the years he spent roaming America, a journey which led to his eventual death in the Alaskan wilderness. A polarizing figure, his actions are still debated to this day. Was he a romantic wanderer? A selfish loner? A tragic fool who underestimated nature? According to Into The Wild, the answer to all of those questions isn’t clear cut. What’s certain is that he lived more life in 24 years than most people do in double the time.
Little Miss Sunshine
Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, Little Miss Sunshine is the story of a lovable family of oddballs. Richard Hoover is a struggling life coach, his step-son is a Nietzsche stan who’s taken a vow of silence, his grandfather was booted from his retirement home for snorting heroin, his daughter Olive is an aspiring beauty queen coached by his suicidal brother in law, and his wife Sheryl is trying to hold them all together. After learning about the “Little Miss Sunshine” beauty pageant, Olive convinces her family to pack into an old Volkswagen and roadtrip to California where the competition will be held. As each person encounters a series of personal setbacks along the way, the dysfunctional family learns to lean on each other to support. Hilarious and heartbreaking, it’s a reminder that while you can’t choose your family, you can choose to show up for them regardless.
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
The ultimate queer road movie, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is the story Anthony “Tick” Belrose – a drag queen who was hired to perform at a remote Australian hotel by his estranged wife. Accompanied by his fellow performers – a trans woman named Bernadette and a young drag queen Adam – they decide to roadtrip across the Australian outback in style. After chartering a bus that they name “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” the trio embarks on a journey across the desolate backcountry, braving both the literal and cultural wilderness. Battling small-town homophobia and wasteland woes, the trio attempt to keep their spirits high in a world that seems out to get them. Hilarious, surreal, campy, and touching, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is as gloriously extra as its extra long title suggests.
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