Easy Rider Overview:

Easy Rider (1969) was a Crime - Drama Film directed by Dennis Hopper and produced by Peter Fonda, Bob Rafelson, Bert Schneider and William Hayward.

SYNOPSIS

Two motorcyclists embark on a coast-to-coast odyssey in search of real America, encountering the many faces of its big cities and small towns, a hippie commune, drugs, and sex in a New Orleans bawdy house. This often-imitated road movie defined a generation and has a memorable soundtrack. Written by the leads and Southern, the subject of later dispute.

(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion).

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Easy Rider was inducted into the National Film Registry in 1998.

Academy Awards 1969 --- Ceremony Number 42 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best Supporting ActorJack NicholsonNominated
Best WritingPeter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Terry SouthernNominated
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BlogHub Articles:

Easy Rider (1969): An Emblem of The ’60s

By 4 Star Film Fan on Mar 24, 2022 From 4 Star Films

“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” There’s no beating around the bush when it comes to Easy Rider. It remains a cultural landmark not only of the counterculture of the ’60s, but it also stands tall as one of the Great American Road movies, albeit fro... Read full article


Easy Rider (1969)

By 4 Star Film Fan on Aug 8, 2013 From 4 Star Films

Starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, this road?film?follows the two young men traveling across country from L.A. after a drug deal. Along the way they meet a Hippie colony, experimenting with drugs, and simply live life as they please. Much of the movie comprises of the many?pit stops?they take a... Read full article


Easy Rider (1969)

By 4 Star Film Fan on Aug 8, 2013 From 4 Star Films

Starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, this road?film?follows the two young men traveling across country from L.A. after a drug deal. Along the way they meet a Hippie colony, experimenting with drugs, and simply live life as they please. Much of the movie comprises of the many?pit stops?they take a... Read full article


Easy Rider (1)

By Alyson on Nov 5, 2011 From The Best Picture Project

Easy Rider follows two young men of the 1960?s counter culture as they travel on custom motorcycles from Los Angeles to New Orleans, for Mardi Gras. ?Their trip is funded by a cocaine deal at the beginning of the film. ?Along the way, we are shown images and a variety of people that make up the Amer... Read full article


Easy Rider

By Michael on May 3, 2011 From Le Mot du Cinephiliaque

Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969) A man is looking for America but couldn’t find it anywhere... What a plot line! Dennis Hopper’s directorial debut, Easy Rider was a big commercial success at the box office but also at Cannes. Made with only 40 000$ it grossed 60 million dollars. The film... Read full article


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Quotes from

Billy: Where ya from man?
Stranger on the Highway: Hard to say.


George Hanson: [Seeing his first marijuana cigarette] Lord have mercy! Is that what that is?


George Hanson: [holding up a business card] The governor of Louisiana gave me this. Madame Tinkertoy's House of Blue Lights, corner of Bourbon and Toulouse, New Orleans, Louisiana. Now, this is supposed to be the finest whorehouse in the south. These ain't no pork chops! These are U.S. PRIME!


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Facts about

Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda did not write a full script for the movie and made most of it up as they went along. They didn't hire a crew but instead picked up hippies at communes across the country, and used friends and passersby to hold the cameras and were drunk and stoned most of the time.
For the famous soliloquy that Peter Fonda does in the cemetery while tripped on acid, Director Dennis Hopper asked Peter to talk to the statue as if he were talking to his mother, who died a suicide when Peter was 10 years old. Peter didn't want to do it, as he had never confronted his feelings about his mother. But Hopper insisted, which is why you hear Peter call the statue "Mother", and he states that he both loves her and hates her, which expresses his conflicted emotions. This scene persuaded Bob Dylan to allow the use of his song "It's Alright Ma" in one of the final scenes, which contains lyrics referencing suicide. Peter told Dylan, "I need to hear those words", and he agreed to its use.
A few years after the release of Easy Rider Peter Fonda appeared in and narrated a short educational film about motorcycle safety entitled 'It's Not So Easy.'
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Best Supporting Actor Oscar 1969






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National Film Registry

Easy Rider

Released 1969
Inducted 1998
(Sound)




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Also directed by Dennis Hopper




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