People like to travel, or see stories about other people hitting the road, and learning about themselves along the way, which is why modern road movies made a comeback in the modern movie era.
“The road movie enjoyed a resurgence in the early 1990s, with the genre being seized upon by independent filmmakers wanting to make their mark,”
according to the British Film Institute.
Here are six modern movies that made their mark on the road movie genre:
1. "Thelma & Louise" (1991)
A self-defense killing leaves two road-tripping BFFs fleeing from the law across the endless vistas of the Southwest desert, striking a tragic blow for feminism and the saddest joyful ending you’ll ever see.
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Here's the famous dialogue spoken by stars Susan Sarandon (Louise) and Geena Davis (Thelma):
“Let’s keep goin’,” Thelma says.
“What’re you talkin’ about?” Louise asks.
“... Go!” Thelma exclaims.
2. "Dumb and Dumber" (1994)
It’s axiomatic that people are suspicious of intellect and celebrate stupidity. This movie went there, and kept going. Harry and Lloyd are good friends with good hearts, but dumber than a bag of hammers. Well, they’re trying to do the right thing ...
3. "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" (1998)
Raoul and his lawyer drive to Las Vegas to cover a motorcycle race and decide to search for the American dream instead. It’s a 1960s fever dream, as you might expect from this booze-soaked adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s memoir.
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4. "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" (2000)
Three chain-gang escapees seek the loot from a robbery and encounter everything and everyone that was strange and wonderful about the American South of the 1930s.
“The treasure you seek shall not be the treasure you find” in this very loose adaptation of Homer’s “Odyssey.”
5. "Little Miss Sunshine" (2006)
When 7-year-old Olive has a chance at a kiddie pageant crown in California, her family of big dreamers and bigger failures pile into their decrepit VW microbus, lurching across the New Mexico desert in pursuit of one more dream. In the end, it’s about accepting each other.
6. "Borat" (2006)
Subtitled, “Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” this movie made everyone mad: The Kazakh government, the various Americans tricked by star Sacha Baron Cohen into lampooning themselves in the movie, the moral guardians of “good taste.”
Most of the people mad at this mix of fiction and documentary didn’t realize until too late that the objectionable picture “Borat” was holding up was a mirror.
Pamela Anderson was one of the few people in the movie who was in on the joke.
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