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+--- Thread: Top 10 Road Movies (/thread-19963.html)
Top 10 Road Movies - Magical Realist - Mar 13, 2026
"Unknown fascinating landscapes, intense relationships, discovery of the self… There’s nothing like a good road trip to learn about the world and your own mind. Rebecca Gallon brings you her Top 10 road movies of all time."
https://alltherightmovies.com/feature/on-the-road-again-top-10-greatest-road-movies/
A few others I found to add to the list:
Kings of the Road
This 1976 drama by Wim Wenders skirts the border of East and West Germany as it ponders the state of cinema, American cultural colonialism and male friendship. A film projector repairman (Rüdiger Vogler) and his depressed passenger (Hanns Zischler) are on a road to nowhere, soundtracked by that Roger Miller song.
Badlands
Fifties South Dakota teenager Holly (Sissy Spacek) falls for unstable, young rebel Kit (Martin Sheen) and goes on the run with him after he shoots her disapproving father. Terence Malick’s 1973 debut is in some ways a typical lovers-on-the-lam tale, but the film-maker’s now-lauded feel for landscape and atmosphere infuses it with a lyrical, fairytale quality.
Sightseers
A defiantly British take on the killers-on-the-run thriller. Instead of Monument Valley and the Mojave desert, Ben Wheatley’s jet-black 2012 comedy gives us the Derwent Pencil Museum and Crich Tramway Village. Steve Oram and Alice Lowe’s sociopathic caravanners go on a road trip in northern England that escalates into a murder spree. Like Nuts in May, but with blunt-force trauma.
Midnight Run
Cop-turned-bounty hunter Robert De Niro thinks he’s got an easy payday when he picks up shlubby mob accountant Charles Grodin. Little does he know … Martin Brest’s sparky 1988 comedy of errors plays up the bickering pair’s differences as they travel across the US by various modes of transport, and brings out a hitherto little-seen comic side of De Niro.
The Straight Story
David Lynch’s arch, elegiac 1999 comedy-drama features probably the slowest road trip in all cinema, as Richard Farnsworth’s Alvin Straight drives his lawnmower, at 5mph, 240 miles from Iowa to Wisconsin to see his sick, estranged brother. An understated examination of heartland America and old age, and available to stream for a bargain 99p.
RE: Top 10 Road Movies - C C - Mar 13, 2026
They were all over the place in the 1970s. Even a crime thriller like "The Getaway" had to conform to the concept. And lowly Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry actually made money, despite Peter Fonda being embarrassed by it. Heck, Sorcerer itself was a harrowing jungle road movie.
Television was beset by road shows the decade before: Route 66, The Fugitive, Run For Your Life, etc. The Invaders was arguably one, taking into account how much David Vincent wandered around.
What didst Jack Kerouac wrought in 1957?