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Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson, Robert Walker Jr., Luana Anders ... see more see more... , Karen Black , Luke Askew , Toni Basil , Warren Finnerty , Carmen Phillips , Sabrina Scharf , Sandy Brown Wyeth , Robert Ball , Michael Pataki , Phil Spector , Antonio Mendoza , Lea Marmer , Beatriz Monteil

Tossing wristwatches away, two bikers hit the road to find America in Dennis Hopper's anti-establishment classic. After a major cocaine sale to an L.A. connection (Phil Spector), free-wheeling pothead... read more read more...s Billy (Hopper) and Wyatt, aka Captain America (Peter Fonda, who also produced), motor eastward to party at Mardi Gras before "retiring" to Florida with the riches concealed in Wyatt's stars-and-stripes gas tank. As they ride through the Southwest, they take a hitchhiker (Luke Askew) to a struggling hippie commune before they get thrown in a small-town jail for "parading without a permit." Their cellmate, drunken ACLU lawyer George Hanson (Jack Nicholson, replacing Rip Torn), does them a "groovy" favor by getting them out of jail and then decides to join them. Babbling about Venusians, George discovers the joys of smoking grass, but an encounter with Southern rednecks soon proves how right he is about the danger posed by Billy's and Wyatt's unfettered life in a country that has lost its ideals. With the straight world closing in, Wyatt and Billy try to revel in New Orleans with some LSD and hookers (Karen Black and Toni Basil), but the acid trip is shot through with morbidity. Once they reach Florida, Billy raves about attaining the American dream; Wyatt, however, knows the truth: "We blew it." Produced and directed by two Hollywood iconoclasts with under a half-million non-studio dollars, Easy Rider shook up the languishing movie industry when it grossed over 19 million dollars in 1969; it captured the spirit of the times as it woke Hollywood up to the power of young audiences and socially relevant movies, along with such other landmarks of the late '60s as Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, and 2001. Shot on location by Laszlo Kovacs, Easy Rider eschewed old-fashioned Hollywood polish for documentary-style immediacy, and it enhanced its casual feel with improvised dialogue and realistically "stoned" acting. With a soundtrack of contemporary rock songs by Jimi Hendrix, the Band, and Steppenwolf to complete the atmosphere, Easy Rider was hailed for capturing the increasingly violent Vietnam-era split between the counterculture and the repressive Establishment. Experiencing the "shock of recognition," youth audiences embraced Easy Rider's vision of both the attractions and the limits of dropping out, proving that audience's box-office power and turning Nicholson into a movie star. The momentarily hip Academy nominated Nicholson for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, and Fonda, Hopper, and Terry Southern for their screenplay. Though none of its imitators would match its impact, Easy Rider remains one of the seminal works of late '60s Hollywood both for its trailblazing legacy and its sharply perceptive portrait of its chaotic times. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

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80% liked it

54,959 ratings

Critics

85% liked it

40 critics

R, 1 hr. 35 min.

Directed by: Dennis Hopper

Release Date: January 1, 1969

Keywords: cult, drug, road, trip, biker

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DVD Release Date: December 7, 1999

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Stats: 3,411 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (3,411)

  • TheDudeLebowski65
    November 15, 2011
    TheDudeLebowski65
    Easy Rider is the seminal road film and is a legendary film in the cinematic medium. Directed by the late Dennis Hopper, Easy Rider tells the story of two bikers who head down to Mardi Gras. Along the way they meet many colorful people. Easy Rider is an important milestone in cin... read moreema because it changed the way cinema was made as it showed a more realistic way in telling a story because of the fact that Easy Rider had a more realistic, documentary feel to its story. Easy Rider is a period piece that captures the feel of the 60's perfectly. The film shows the chaos of late 60's of the Vietnam War, its toll on the country and really the end of an era of so called peace and love. Easy Rider is a raw, gritty portrait that showcases all that with incredible realism. This is a brilliant film that gives us a taste of the 60's. The film is an important milestone in cinema, and is in my opinion, the most important road film ever made. The performances here are great. Hopper, Fonda and Nicholson deliver performances that are memorable. This is a raw picture that if you're looking for the realism, the feel of the 60's, then look no further than Easy Rider. This is a film that can't be dismissed. Easy Rider is a film that forever shaped and changed cinema and remains one of the most important Cult films ever made.
  • fb1664868775
    October 30, 2011
    fb1664868775
    Capturing a moment in time perfectly, this film is a time capsule to 1969. Though it now seems very dated to me, it does feature a truly great performance from Jack Nicholson.
  • middleeasternfilms
    August 12, 2011
    middleeasternfilms
    Trippy late-60's account of two biker friends who take the money from a cocaine deal and travel to New Orleans to partake in Mardi Gras. Along the way they pick up a drifting hippy and a well-connected alcoholic (played by Jack Nicholson) and meet several classes of southerners w... read moreho don't like their long hair. The excessive drug use in this almost got me baked halfway through the film, but then again it was the 60's and Dennis Hopper so you had to expect it from the times. Excellent visualizations with a deeper meaning about finding freedom.
  • axadntpron
    May 26, 2011
    axadntpron
    Easy Rider is a cool movie. By cool I don't mean good. I mean that it features cool music, cool bikes, and a couple of dudes having a good time. While I can appreciate the film as piece of counter-culture cinema that spoke to a growing population of dissenters of the cold war con... read moresensus, it isn't a film that stands on its own. Hopper isn't a particularly good director and unless I didn't "get" his performance, his character was rather obnoxious and bland. Even Nicholson, who is at his hammiest in this role, blows Hopper out of the water whenever they share the screen. Yet, don't get me wrong, there are some good parts to the film. Scenes such as the one in the diner which showcases the oppression that those of the counter-culture faced, actually present some rather great moments. Yet, they sadly cannot sustain an entire film in which the whole idea seems to be "Hey look at us, we are the counter-culture!" In the end, I guess I just wanted to care about the characters and aside from their brief fireside conversations, the viewer gets very little in the way of what drives these men.
    I know this is an iconic piece of film. In fact, I can still hear the collective erection from adolescent males from the combination of motorcycles and Steppenwolf. Yet, the movie as a whole, doesn't really hold up as a stand alone piece of cinema.
  • fb100002359227440
    May 22, 2011
    fb100002359227440
    Easy Rider, one of the best films of 69, the birth of a new generation, that showing two bikers with the wish to escape of a conservative society, and find a America of freedon, which don't exist. The confrontation between Billy with Captain America against prejudice. A surrealis... read moret portrait from a ride. But the film presents another vision, a evil side from the protagonist Billy. Screenplay, written by Fonda, Hopper and Southern, direction by Hopper and great performing made by Nicholson, Peter and Dennis, with the soundtrack, are terrific. Easy Rider, for some people probably will go looks like a propaganda hippie film, that in some way it's. Fresh.
  • jennifxu
    April 29, 2011
    jennifxu
    The cinematic cadenza was royally explosive.
  • bottcorecords1
    March 23, 2011
    bottcorecords1
    Is it a biker flick, a road picture, a cowboy movie, or a symbollic look at the battle between 60s counterculture and mainstream America (more specifically, southern America)? The film that was a cultural touchstone for the flower power generation manages to be all these things ... read morewhile also being a simple, quality indie-style film. And simple it is: the plot involves two hippy bikers (Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper) taking a trip from California to New Orleans for mardi gras and meeting the entire cross-section of the American population. Some greet them with open arms (the lost souls of a hippy commune) and some, like the southern cops, not so much. Maybe at times it does club you over the head with symbolism (a character called Captain America has an american flag on his leather jacket and rides a bike painted in the flag colors and has an american flag helmet- alright, we get it, hippies can be patriotic too... conservatives don't have exclusive rights to patriotism), but much like the rock music of the era, you can't help but appreciate the earnestness. Jack Nicolson has a scene-stealing supporting role as a drunken southern lawyer who decides to turn on, tune in and drop out with the two bikers. I read somewhere the actors were smoking real weed when sitting around the campfire, and Jack delivers some great UFO-inspired dialogue in that scene. Like most westerns, there's a saloon scene (well, actually it's a restaurant) where the heroes are bullied by the local ruffians, and a great scene towards the end where Hopper's character raises a literal middle finger towards death. At the advent of the seventies, it's a bittersweet ending to the flower-power generation's tale, as the rebels without causes get slowly lost to the winds.
  • mjgildea
    February 9, 2011
    mjgildea
    While its a great and important movie, Easy Rider didn't hold up on a second (or was it my third...?) viewing for me. Sure, Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper did well in their roles and it probably paints an appropriately perfect and frightening portrayal of America in the late 60s. ... read moreHowever there are points in Easy Rider where it merely comes off as a collection of beautifully photographed series of landscape music videos for the movie's brilliant soundtrack. Easy Rider gets more uncomfortable and subsequently more frightening as its short but sweet running time goes on with a climax that makes me think twice about saying I was born too late. Jack Nicholson is great and his campfire scenes with Fonda and Hopper are brilliant. Terry Southern's dialogue is magnificent and the Mardi Gras acid trip was cool, all while knowing when to let the viewer off the hook. A great movie but by no means a masterpiece.
  • tsigur
    January 24, 2011
    tsigur
    Spoller: I am going to get a lot of shit for this next review. I am putting this is the context as if seeing it within the time. In other words, look at it as if this movie came out today about things going on today. If I was sitting in a theater in the seventies, I would think t... read morehis same thing: this movie is overrated. I know, in the context of when it came out and it's rich history, that everyone is supposed to fall in love with it because it paved the way for a beautiful time in film. For that, I appreciate it, but, as an overall movie, it is no more than a fifty page script with tons and tons of traveling shots. I never connected with Dennis Hopper or Peter Fonda, but loved Jack Nicholson. And I think the whole rednecks wanting to kill hippies is a little overplayed. Not mention the tripping acid scene is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long. To put these guys up as heroes when they are no more than drug dealers is a little much for me. Maybe it's the fact that I think that I hate hippies, but, at the end of the day, I appreciate what it did for the rest of the filmmakers of the era, but it just doesn't hold up for me.
  • ajv2688
    December 12, 2010
    ajv2688
    Although this film is normally considered a classic biker movie and the best of the genre, I didn't think it was all that fantastic. I liked it, but I've seen better biker movies. The cast is good, but I kind of wanted to see Nicholson's character in more of the movie. There a... read morere some really psychedelic scenes interspersed in this movie with the more normal biker type scenes, which felt weird. The story is interesting, but like the bikers it kind of wanders around, which is cool but kind of annoying at the same time. Overall, it's good, but it's not the best biker movie around.

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Critic Reviews

Gene Moskowitz
June 26, 2007
Gene Moskowitz, Variety

None of the forced violence, lawlessness, rapist, gratuitous speed aspects of the motorbike clan in this perceptive film. Full Review

Dave Kehr
June 26, 2007
Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

The film may be a relic now, but it is a fascinating souvenir -- particularly in its narcissism and fatalism -- of how the hippie movement thought of itself. Full Review

Vincent Canby
May 20, 2003
Vincent Canby, New York Times

Hopper, Fonda and their friends went out into America looking for a movie and found instead a small, pious statement (upper case) about our society (upper case), which is sick (upper case). It's prett... Full Review

Roger Ebert
March 25, 2003
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

It plays today more as a period piece than as living cinema, but it captures so surely the tone and look of that moment in time. Full Review

James Kendrick
December 5, 2010
James Kendrick, Q Network Film Desk

unlike earlier films that exploited the sensational nature of their subject matter and did little else, Easy Rider borrowed its attitude and aesthetics from the various European new waves and sought t... Full Review

Sean Axmaker
December 3, 2010
Sean Axmaker, Parallax View

... a countercultural shot across the bow of an out-of-touch Hollywood system. Full Review

Walter Chaw
June 15, 2010
Walter Chaw, Film Freak Central

like all great films, with a finger firm on the pulse of the entire spirit of the age, it predicted in terms brutal and eloquent the end of the whole fucking thing. Full Review

Fernando F. Croce
December 1, 2009
Fernando F. Croce, CinePassion

Despite it all, it's a valuable document of hepcat actors taking snapshots of America circa 1969 Full Review

James Plath
October 25, 2009
James Plath, Movie Metropolis

More than anything else, the thing that gives Easy Rider its legendary status is that it's an indie film that became the spokesperson for a decade when Hollywood was preoccupied with other concerns. Full Review

Cole Smithey
May 5, 2009
Cole Smithey, ColeSmithey.com

The film stands up as a profound period piece that continues to reverberate with the despondent hostilities of modern American existence. Full Review

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    • Wyatt (Captain America): You know, Billy. We blew it.
  • Easy Rider rides again!
  • This Year It's Easy Rider
  • A man went looking for America. And couldn't find it anywhere...
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  • Easy Rider: Apart from Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda, which other actor Acted and Directed the film?  Answer »
  • During the filming of Easy Rider Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Jack Nicholson were actually smoking marijuana on camera  Answer »
  • The flame tank chopper Johnny Blaze, in Ghost Rider, rides is a modern replica of the "Captain America" chopper that Peter Fonda rides in WHAT movie?  Answer »
  • In the movie Easy Rider, where is their destination?  Answer »
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