
After smuggling cocaine from Mexico to Los Angeles, they sell their haul and receive a large sum of money. Wyatt and Billy are freewheeling motorcyclists. In 1998, the film was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It received two Academy Awards nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (Jack Nicholson). Critics have praised the performances, directing, writing, soundtrack, and visuals. Released by Columbia Pictures on July 14, 1969, Easy Rider earned $60 million worldwide from a filming budget of no more than $400,000. Real drugs were used in scenes showing the use of marijuana and other substances. The success of Easy Rider helped spark the New Hollywood era of filmmaking during the early 1970s.Ī landmark counterculture film, and a "touchstone for a generation" that "captured the national imagination," Easy Rider explores the societal landscape, issues, and tensions towards adolescents in the United States during the 1960s, such as the rise of the hippie movement, drug use, and communal lifestyle. Fonda and Hopper play two bikers who travel through the American Southwest and South, carrying the proceeds from a cocaine deal. This article originally appeared on Rider is a 1969 American independent road drama film written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda, and directed by Hopper. Tarantino would later call “Head” “obviously one of the most inventive movies ever made.” Jackson.įilmmakers including Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson have spoken often of their admiration for New Hollywood and Rafelson’s work. His final feature-film directing credit was the 2002 thriller “No Good Deed,” starring Samuel L.

He also continued a lifelong creative partnership with Nicholson. The film was nominated for four Oscars, and helped make Nicholson a major star Roger Ebert called it a “masterpiece.” Rafelson next produced Peter Bogdanovich’s “The Last Picture Show,” and would direct Nicholson again in “The King of Marvin Gardens,” cementing his reputation as a key figure of the New Hollywood movement and BBS’ reputation as a clubhouse for all of the film industry’s cool kids.īBS faded after the mid-1970s, but Rafelson continued to direct into his later decades, including a 1981 remake of noir classic “The Postman Always Rings Twice” that was the screenwriting debut of Jewish playwright David Mamet.
Jack nicholson easy rider movie#
The following year Rafelson co-wrote and directed “Five Easy Pieces,” another era-defining road movie starring Nicholson as a former piano prodigy turned drifter who works in an oil field. With his Jewish friend Bert Schneider and childhood friend Steve Blauner, he formed a new production studio, BBS Productions, and helped to produce Dennis Hopper’s 1969 classic “Easy Rider,” about two motorcyclists on a cross-country road trip.

Audiences hated it, but Rafelson found his calling. He and Nicholson teamed up to make “Head,” a 1968 film starring The Monkees that was far-out, plotless and trippy. With the proceeds from The Monkees, Rafelson entered a period of wild experimentation that would form the basis of what would become New Hollywood - creator-driven low-budget films, heavily inspired by European new waves, often featuring loose free-associative plots and made in a collaborative setting.
