Why are road trip movies so dumb?
That’s not to say that all road trip movies are poo-diving, beer chugging comedies aimed at the lowest possible denominator, but it sure feels that way sometimes. Certainly the highest profile movies about people traveling from one place to another throughout the entire film, and getting in all sorts of misadventures along the way, are usually “wacky” comedies like this summer’s Vacation, but there are plenty of exceptions. Heck, the Sundance Film Festival is full of them every single year. And yet few of those movies ever break into the public consciousness, or get the same multimillion dollar marketing campaigns as a National Lampoon joint, or a Dumb and Dumber sequel.
If you have no intention of seeing Vacation, we can’t really blame you. But that doesn’t mean you have to sit out the road trip genre entirely. You may just have to look a little harder to find impressive road trip movies that don’t insult your intelligence.
And that’s what Crave’s here for. So let’s scratch the surface with nine of our favorite Road Trip Movies for Smart People.
Nine Road Trip Movies for Smart People:
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
Road Trip Movies for Smart People
-
It Happened One Night (1934)
Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, working with director Frank Capra, changed the way we look at rom-coms and road trip movies alike with this classic screwball farce. Colbert plays an heiress on the lam, and Gable plays the reporter who agrees to accompany her along the way, and of course they hate each other, and of course they fall in love, and of course the whole relationship almost falls apart, but It Happened One Night practically invented those tropes, and popularized them for the first time. So watch this still-hilarious comedy to learn a lot about film history, and see the first film to ever will all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay).
-
The 39 Steps (1935)
Alfred Hitchcock, the grand master of cinematic suspense, helped define the thriller genre with The 39 Steps, a ripping "wrong man" picture starring the suave Robert Donat as a hapless traveler suddenly framed for murder, and sucked into a far-reaching espionage plot. Hitchcock would go on to revisit his road movie/chase movie mashup multiple times (see also: North By Northwest, Saboteur, the list goes on), but The 39 Steps was the film that first broke the bank, and still has the most hilariously clever finale in Hitchcock's whole filmography.
-
Badlands (1973)
The first film from Terrence Malick, one of the great American auteurs, is a violent travelogue of the Midwest with stunning performances from Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek as teen lovers with a deadly streak. After murdering the girl's father, a young man drags her along the gorgeous vistas of America, shooting their way into and out of scrapes, and gradually watching their relationship wither as the realization sinks in that maybe, just maybe, doing whatever they want all it's cracked up to be.
-
Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989)
If you ever wanted to see The Blues Brothers crossed with Borat, as if it were directed by David Lynch, then you will love Leningrad Cowboys Go America. Aki Kaurismäki's light hearted road picture stars a gaggle of pompadoured Siberian folk singers who venture across the U.S., gradually learning the finer points of rock and roll on their way to play a Mexican wedding. Sweet, slight and musically infectious, this artsy road trip movie will make you feel as though you've discovered something truly special, and like us, you'll want to share it with the rest of the world.
-
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)
One of the true masterpieces of Australian quirk (and that's really saying something), Stephan Elliot's Oscar-winning Priscilla stars Hugo Weaving, Guy Pearce and Terrence Stamp as drag queen/transexual lip-synchers crossing the Aussie plains, sharing their fabulous cabaret with folks who just don't get it. Fortunately, thanks to wonderful performances and smart, heartfelt writing, you'll get everything going on in their glamorous heads. Priscilla is one of the great road trip character pieces.
-
Get On The Bus (1996)
Spike Lee dramatized the Louis Farrakhan's Million Man March in the cleverest way: by packing a group of African-American men on a bus, and demonstrating just how hard it is to unite a country when even a handful of individuals have trouble getting along. Impressive performances and a script that isn't afraid to address the more controversial elements of the event - including Farrakhan's views on women and Jews - make Get On the Bus one of the smartest road trip movies, and one of Spike Lee's best films.
-
Dogma (1999)
Kevin Smith may be best known for jokes about popular culture, sex and drugs, but he put on his thinking cap before he made Dogma. This sprawling road trip comedy - which also has jokes about popular culture, sex and drugs - is packed with religious commentary, and a plot that skewers the hypocrisies of Catholicism while still managing to support the ideas and overall value of religion. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon star as fallen angels who might actually undo creation due to a religious loophole, and two stoners and an abortion clinic employee are the only ones who can save God and prevent the apocalypse. Controversial, but wickedly intelligent.
-
The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)
Before he became the Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara, he was just a kid on a motorcycle, traveling across South America on a journey of reckless youth that slowly raises his awareness of the plight of the working man. The Motorcycle Diaries is a fascinating look at a man whom audience members may already have strong feelings (one way or the other), but wisely sets the events early enough in his life that we can all see where he came from, and how personal experience shapes the people we eventually become.
-
Locke (2014)
Tom Hardy gets in a car, and he never gets out, in Steven Knight's challenging drama Locke. He just starts driving to his destination, and where he's going, and how he's going to destroy his life en route, is integral to the film's gripping, albeit low-key tension, and we won't ruin it here. But if you've ever had your world fall apart mid-phone call, and if you've ever had to drive somewhere while undergoing a personal crisis, you'll understand where Locke is coming from, and you'll be fascinated to discover how it all turns out.
