Film Information
Experience two iconic road movies that define freedom and rebellion on the open highway. Dennis Hopper’s acclaimed directorial debut, Easy Rider (1969) follows two bikers searching for meaning across America. In Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), Monte Hellman delivers a minimalist odyssey of a cross-country drag race and the strange bond it creates. Together, these cult classics evoke the myth and melancholy of the American highway.
One ticket gets you in to both movies for an epic double feature.
Easy Rider (1969)
Dir. Dennis Hopper
USA • 95 minutes
This is the definitive counterculture blockbuster. The down-and-dirty directorial debut of former clean-cut teen star Dennis Hopper, Easy Rider heralded the arrival of a new voice in film, one pitched angrily against the mainstream. After the film’s cross-country journey—with its radical, New Wave–style editing, outsider-rock soundtrack, revelatory performance by a young Jack Nicholson, and explosive ending—the American road trip would never be the same.
Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)
Dir. Monte Hellman
USA • 105 minutes
Drag racing east from Los Angeles in a souped-up ’55 Chevy are the wayward Driver and Mechanic (singer-songwriter James Taylor and the Beach Boys’ Dennis Wilson, in their only acting roles), accompanied by a tagalong Girl (Laurie Bird). With its gorgeous widescreen compositions and sophisticated look at American male obsession, this stripped-down narrative from maverick director Monte Hellman is one of the artistic high points of 1970s cinema, and possibly the greatest road movie ever made.
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