In general, road movies are a film genre in which the action takes places during a road journey or a vehicle-based film. The genre name is also taken as the title of the 1974 film Road Movie by Joseph Strick. Notable examples include Duel, Easy Rider, The Long Long Trailer, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Just Like the Son, Natural Born Killers, Rain Man, Thelma and Louise, Wild at Heart, Little Miss Sunshine, Dutch, Y tu mamá también, Rat Race, Larger Than Life, The Hitcher, The Cannonball Run, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle, Transamerica, Children of Men, National Lampoon's Vacation and Road Trip. Road movie often refers to a cinematic genre in which the action takes places during a road journey. ... Even in the early days of film history, the audience appetite for new content was voracious. ... Joseph Strick is an American director, producer and screenwriter. ... Duel is a 1971 television movie directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Dennis Weaver. ... Wyatt, Mary (Toni Basil), Billy and Karen (Karen Black) wandering the streets of a parade filled New Orleans. ... The Long, Long Trailer is a novel by Clinton Twiss from the 1950s. ... Planes, Trains & Automoblies DVD cover Planes, Trains & Automobiles is an American comedy movie produced in 1987. ... For the song, see Natural Born Killaz. ... Rain Man is a 1988 film which tells the story of a selfish yuppie who discovers that his father has left all of his estate to the autistic brother he never knew he had. ... Thelma and Louise Thelma and Louise is a road movie from 1991 conceived and written by Callie Khouri, co-produced and directed by Ridley Scott, and starring Geena Davis as Thelma, Susan Sarandon as Louise, and Harvey Keitel as a sympathetic detective trying to solve crimes that the two women... Wild at Heart is a 1990 American film written for the screen and directed by David Lynch, based on Barry Giffords novel Wild at Heart: The Story of Sailor and Lula about a young couple from South Carolina who, after Sailors return from prison, decide to go on... Little Miss Sunshine is a 2006 Academy Award-winning dramatic comedy film about a familys road trip to a childrens beauty pageant. ... Y tu mamá también (literally And your mother, too, released in English-speaking markets under the original Spanish title) is a 2001 Mexican film directed by Alfonso Cuarón. ... For the similarly named 1960 film, see The Rat Race. ... Larger than Life is the second album by American pop singer Jody Watley, released in 1989 (see 1989 in music). ... For the episode of The Mighty Boosh, see Hitcher. ... Cannonball Run was a campy, screwball comedy released in 1981 that starred Burt Reynolds, Dom DeLuise and Farrah Fawcett-Majors. ... The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is a 1994 Oscar-winning Australian film about two drag queens and a transsexual woman driving across the outback from Sydney to Alice Springs in a large bus they have named Priscilla. ... Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (released in some countries as Harold and Kumar get the Munchies or American High, due to few international White Castle locations) is a comedy movie released in 2004. ... Transamerica Corporation is an insurance and investment company in the United States. ... Children of Men is a 2006 dystopian science fiction film loosely adapted from P.D. James 1992 novel The Children of Men. ... National Lampoons Vacation is a 1983 comedy film directed by Harold Ramis and starring Chevy Chase, Beverly DAngelo, Anthony Michael Hall, Dana Barron, Randy Quaid and Imogene Coca. ... This article or section contains a plot summary that is overly long or excessively detailed compared to the rest of the article. ...

History

Although the genre has its roots in earlier tales of epic journeys, such as Homer's Odyssey and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, road films are uniquely post-WWII, reflecting the boom of America's postwar automobility and youth culture. Despite the fact that road movies existed in the Depression era, the genre only became self-aware as a genre in the 1960s with Easy Rider and Bonnie and Clyde. (Earlier films, like The Wild One and Rebel Without a Cause, focus more on mobility than the road, but they are important influences nonetheless.) For this reason, road movies offer a great pop cultural history of America's shifting relationship to the road, cars, and other technologies, especially as various rebel groups—hippies, blacks, gays and lesbians, women, Asian Americans—remap the American road story. For other uses, see Homer (disambiguation). ... This article is about the poem by Homer. ... // Joseph Conrad (born Teodor Józef Konrad NaÅ‚Ä™cz-Korzeniowski, 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Polish-born novelist who spent most of his adult life in Britain. ... For other uses, see Heart of Darkness (disambiguation). ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969, inclusive. ... Wyatt, Mary (Toni Basil), Billy and Karen (Karen Black) wandering the streets of a parade filled New Orleans. ... Bonnie and Clyde (1967) is a film about Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, bank robbers who roamed the central United States during the Great Depression. ... The Wild One is a 1953 outlaw biker film. ... Natalie Wood and James Dean in a screenshot from Rebel Without a Cause. ... Hippies (singular hippie or sometimes hippy) were members of the 1960s counterculture movement who adopted a communal or nomadic lifestyle, renounced corporate nationalism and the Vietnam War, embraced aspects of Buddhism, Hinduism, and/or Native American religious culture, and were otherwise at odds with traditional middle class Western values. ... Though most indigenous Africans possess relatively dark skin, they exhibit much variation in physical appearance. ... Homosexuality refers to sexual interaction and / or romantic attraction between individuals of the same sex. ... Image of a woman on the Pioneer plaque sent to outer space. ... An Asian American is a person of Asian ancestry or origin who was born in or is an immigrant to the United States. ...

Structure

Like their antecedents, the road movie tends towards an episodic structure. In each episode, there is a challenge to be met, although not all of them will be met successfully. In most episodes, a piece of the plot is revealed - knowledge or allies are gained, and so on. Sometimes, as Heart of Darkness, this progress is inverted, and each episode represents a loss rather than a gain.

Road movies traditionally end in one of four ways:

• having met with triumph at their ultimate destination, the protagonist/s return home, wiser for their experiences.
• at the end of the journey, the protagonist/s find a new home at their destination.
• the journey continues endlessly. In such cases, the last shot of the film is almost always the driver's point of view of a lonely highway at night.
• having realised that, as a result of their journey, they can never go home, the protagonists either choose death or are killed.

Action films

Another version of this is a road-based action movie, particularly the post-apocalyptic genre of the 1980s influenced by Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior in which bands of barbarians would fight good guys in the post-apocalypse when gasoline was scarce and vehicles were makeshift. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (released in the US in 1981 as The Road Warrior) was a sequel to Mad Max. ...

Heist Movies

This genre is also where all heist movies are found. Any quest, mission or "treasure locked in a castle" that is to be approached by an individual or a group has the same rules as the Road Movie. Very often the mission becomes secondary to other, more personal, discoveries; the twists and turns of the plot are suddenly less important than the meaning derived from the heist, as Ocean's Eleven, The Dirty Dozen, and The Magnificent Seven prove. Oceans Eleven is the name of two American heist films: the original of 1960, and the remake of 2001. ... For the rap group, see D12. ... The Magnificent Seven is a 1960 western film directed by John Sturges about a group of hired gunmen tasked with protecting a Mexican village from bandits. ...

References

• In Easy Rider, Wyatt complains that his life is like being in a road movie.
• They Might Be Giants wrote a song entitled "Road Movie to Berlin," featured on the album Flood
• In the Family Guy episodes "Road to Rhode Island" and "Road to Europe," large portions of the film series are grafted onto the show

Wyatt, Mary (Toni Basil), Billy and Karen (Karen Black) wandering the streets of a parade filled New Orleans. ... This article is about the musical group. ... Flood is the third studio album by They Might Be Giants, and their first with a major label, Elektra Records. ... Family Guy is an Emmy award winning American animated television series about a nuclear family in the fictional town of Quahog (IPA or ), Rhode Island. ... Road to Rhode Island is an episode from the second season of the FOX animated television series Family Guy. ... “Road to Europe” (originally called “European Road Show”) is an episode of Family Guy guest-starring Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of KISS and Andy Dick as themselves. ...

"Road to" movies

Main article: Road to...

Road to... also refers to seven comedy films starring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Dorothy Lamour. Road to. ... Bob Hope, KBE (May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003), born Leslie Townes Hope, was an English-Born American entertainer who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, on radio and television, in movies, and in performing tours for U.S. Military personnel, well known for his good natured humor and career longevity. ... Harry Lillis Bing Crosby (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer and actor whose career lasted from 1926 until his death in 1977. ... Dorothy Lamour (December 10, 1914 – September 22, 1996) was an American motion picture actress. ...

Filmography

• Road Movie Filmography (via UC Berkeley)

Bibliography

• Road Movies: A Bibliography of Materials in the UC Berkeley Library
• The Road Story and the Rebel: Moving Through Film, Fiction, and Television by Katie Mills
• Save the Cat by Blake Snyder