10 Greatest Directorial Film Debuts
5. Dennis Hopper – Easy Rider (1969)
A landmark film for not only its cultural significance, but also its influence on Hollywood, Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider captures the counterculture movement of the 1960s.
Featuring one of the best film soundtracks of all time, the road drama follows bikers Hopper and his close friend Peter Fonda's journey across the American South. Fueled by drugs, sex and rock n' roll, the movie is a psychedelic adventure into the communal and free living lifestyle of the hippie generation.
Easy Rider is one of the key influential films that changed the landscape in Hollywood. Alongside Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The Graduate (1967) and various others, Easy Rider was critical to the transfer of power in the film industry, with young ambitious filmmakers taking creative control away from the studios.
Challenging traditional cinema with a fresh style and adherence to realism, New Hollywood would dominate the box office for the duration of the 1970s.
Hopper's groundbreaking first contribution to this movement would be awarded with two Oscar nominations and in 1998, the film was selected for preservation at the US National Film Registry.