Top 10 Road Trip Movies
By Cinema Sugar
There’s just something cinematic about the open road. As a tie-in with our Summer theme, here are 10 sentences on our favorite road trip movies.
10. Joy Ride (2001)
It’s the perfect combination of “the killer’s calling from inside the house” and Crossroads.
9. Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure
Obviously Pee-Wee cannot hear Danny Elfman’s score, but if you told me it was playing on a loop in Paul Reubens’ brain during filming I would 100% believe you.
8. Y Tu Mamá También
Oh the places you’ll go when your hormones take the wheel!
7. Lost in America
Julie Hagerty’s sudden transformation from mannered Mrs. to crazed gambler is just about the funniest thing you’ll ever see.
6. Bandits
A romantic comedy heist movie with Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, and Cate Blanchett as bank robbers in the Pacific Northwest… say less.
5. Wild At Heart
We should all be grateful that David Lynch created this heavy-metal Wizard of Oz road-trip fairytale and picked up Nicolas Cage somewhere along the way.
4. Little Miss Sunshine
Nothing says summer road trip more than gas stations, diners, motels, family dysfunction, car troubles, and waffles à la mode.
3. Badlands
Because everything—trigger-happy fugitives, moral decay, the open road, great American vistas—looks better through the lens of Terrence Malick.
2. Paris, Texas
Who among us hasn’t emerged from the Texas desert in a catatonic state and spanned the American Southwest in an ‘84 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme?
1. Thelma and Louise
Here’s to feminism, friendship, and escalating misdemeanors.
Contributors: Natalie Bauer, Chad Comello, Natalie Pohorski, and Kevin Prchal.