10 Movies That Ripped Up The Rule Book
5. Easy Rider
Pretty much all students of film agree that the 1970s were the most groundbreaking and significant decade in American cinema history. A new generation of auteur filmmakers including Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorcese blazed the trail for a new era in Hollywood, in which the director was king, and personal, provocative and topical visions were the order of the day.
Easy Rider was one of a small number of key films which forged to this New Hollywood ethos. Directed by Dennis Hopper and produced by Peter Fonda, with both men also co-writing and playing the lead roles, the film follows a pair of bikers who embark on a long road trip, funded by a drug deal.
Hopper, Fonda and co-star Jack Nicholson had previously represented biker culture and drug culture in Roger Corman's The Wild Angels and The Trip, but in taking the reins on Easy Rider they pushed for far greater authenticity.
As such, the film has a semi-documentary feel at times, with minimal plot and character development, and a far greater emphasis on conveying the mood of the times.
Its influence on the cinema that followed, from America and abroad, is incontrovertible.