"Top 100 of all time Selection"
Criterion Collection Spine #545
(America Lost and Found: The BBS Story Boxset)
Through the Eye of Criterion
"Top 10 Low Budget Film Selection"

"You know, this used to be a helluva good country. I can't understand what's gone wrong with it. "

'Easy Rider' take you for a ride into the heart, soul and darkness of America. Director Dennis Hopper created a perfect time capsule of that point in time.

László Kovács cinematography, captures the essence of what a road trip film should be about, using wide angle shots that highlight the beauty of nature and the sense of complete freedom.

Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson are freaking outstanding, Fonda as the biker that…

Have you ever watched a movie where you feel that the filmmakers accomplished precisely what they were setting out to, but it just didn't appeal to you? That's what happened with Easy Rider and me. Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper set out to do a few things. One, they wanted to display the death of the American dream. Two, they wanted to create the ultimate road movie. Three, they wanted to combine a killer soundtrack with some excellent appreciation of motorcycles. I feel like they nailed all of these things, but it never worked for me at all on my personal level.

I have admittedly always been the kind of film admirer whose attention gravitates more towards narrative and complex,…

Written and directed by its stars, Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper respectively, this iconic piece of counterculture lit the touch paper for a generation of New Hollywood cinema. While it may lack the contextual impact of its release, Easy Rider’s cultural and historical significance, as well as its quality, grants it a legendary status.

On the surface, the film is a classic road movie. The central narrative contains all the conventions of a simple genre piece, following two bikers, Wyatt (Fonda) and Billy (Hopper), who travel through America’s South.

With leather jackets, untamed hair and a carefree attitude, these two friends were the epitome of cool in their generation in the late sixties. The chemistry they display in their differing…

Dennis Hopper's directorial debut shook up conventions and defined a generation. I love what this film stands for aesthetically; rebellious filmmaking with the intent to push boundaries and authentically portray the nature and essence of the times. Credited as starting a movement called New Hollywood where production companies discovered that they could make money by hiring avant-grade directors working on low budgets.

This is the ultimate road movie; following Wyatt and Billy, two drug dealing bikers who are journeying across the country to Louisiana for Mardi Gras. Wyatt and Billy represent two vastly different yet ultimately bonded types of characters. Peter Fonda plays Wyatt who is soft-spoken - he has very little dialogue - and seems as if he is…

Easy Rider was one of the many films left on my trek to watching AFi's top 100. I'm really glad I watched it because I would have seen the cover and thought otherwise.

Easy Rider is a gritty look at drugs, hippies, motorcycles and the south during the 60's. It was a time filled with tension from people being scared of what they can't control and from people being scared of oppresion and growing up. Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson were exceptional in their roles.

The soundtrack was to die for (i downloaded a few while the movie was still playing) and the look and feel of the deep south was ever present in every scene. The triple…

Easy Rider feels more like a time-capsule than a movie. It could be the defining statement of an attitude, era, and generation. With a clear message about the meaning of freedom, the film has resonated for decades. As its protagonists, Captain America and Billy, become disillusioned by America as a concept, the audience feels their loss.

As an actual film, it's harder to judge. While its lackadaisical pace and meanderings are a part of the film's charms, it sometimes drags. The cinematography is as beautiful as the soundtrack is iconic, but so much time is spent gazing at landscapes while songs that have lost a lot of their meaning over 45 years drone on incessantly. The various encounters on this…

Justly celebrated as the film that truly channeled the downward slope of the 60s counterculture, Dennis Hopper’s experimental mishmash of a road movie is flawed, to be sure, and perhaps not the profound masterpiece many claim it to be, but Easy Rider should be celebrated for its flagrant deconstruction of what was considered popular cinema. Borrowing its attitude and aesthetics from the various European new waves, the film is shapeless, a picaresque squall of bizarre encounters between the chopper riding heroes of freedom as they bounce between communes of ‘shroomed hippies, suspicious yokels, to the famous fireside encounter with a booze-riddled lawyer fantastically played by Jack Nicholson.

Easy Rider’s ultimate success at the box office demonstrated in a way that…

"These ain't no pork chops, these are US prime."

Easy Rider is freedom. Throughout this Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda pet project you feel this overbearing sense of freedom emitting from the screen. Whether it be the great landscapes, classic hard rock music, or simply the open road with two choppers being its only protectors. The opening title sequence alone just seems to ooze independence from the bullshit in our lives and to focus on what we love, heavy metal thunder.

While it is noticeable that this is Hopper's first foray into directing, the pacing can slow down at times and editing is jagged, but at the same time these elements seem to work in Easy Rider's favor, as they…