Road Movie Poll (If There's Enough Interest, This Becomes the Nominations Thread)

I don't know if there is...I drew up a list of 67 two-and-a-half years ago (found it still sitting there on Google Docs), then put the idea aside. I think the last big film polls I voted in were the comedy and horror polls a couple of years ago; there may have been one or two after that (animation?).

I'm heading into two busy months at work, so this would actually be a good thing to take my mind off that when I get home.

There was a click-poll a few years ago:

'70s road movies: a (no doubt incomplete) poll

I added a bunch more, with a very loose definition in mind of what might qualify, good films and otherwise. I'd like to think the list could be pushed to 100.

About Schmidt
Alice in the Cities
Almost Famous
Badlands
Bonnie and Clyde
Bound for Glory
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
Broken Flowers
Detour
Duel
Easy Rider
Electra Glide in Blue
Five Easy Pieces
Flirting with Disaster
Gerry
Goin’ Down the Road
Going Places
Gun Crazy
Harry and Tonto
Heroes
It Happened One Night
It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World
Kings of the Road
L’Avventura
La Strada
Little Miss Sunshine
Lolita
Lost in America
Midnight Cowboy
My Own Private Idaho
Nebraska
Old Joy
One False Move
Paper Moon
Paris, Texas
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins
Rain Man
Scarecrow
Sherman’s March
Sideways
Something Wild
Stranger Than Paradise
Sullivan’s Travels
The Darjeeling Limited
The Daytrippers
The Grapes of Wrath
The Last Detail
The Rain People
The Straight Story
The Sugarland Express
The Sure Thing
The Wizard of Oz
Thelma and Louise
They Drive By Night
Thieves Like Us
Two for the Road
Two-Lane Blacktop
Ulysses’ Gaze
Vanishing Point
Wanda
Who’ll Stop the Rain
Wild at Heart
Wild Strawberries
Y Tu Mamá También
You Only Live Once
Zabriskie Point

This might prompt a few ideas http://www.imdb.com/search/keyword?keywords=road-movie Then again maybe not. Inside Out, Bourne Supremacy.

Will scroll through, thanks. (Apocalypse Now at #3--that's a river movie.)

Could include The Straight Story.

Oh, I see it was alphabetized under "T", not "S".

It's on there (using lazy internet alphabetization). Obviously would add American Honey from the imdb list. I'm on the fence about westerns like The Searchers and Red River...They're structured around journeys, for sure, but I think three-quarters of all the westerns ever made might end up counting as road movies, and then it becomes a westerns poll. But then I guess The Wizard of Oz is somewhat of a stretch too. I want to say true road movies need to involve a highway, a car, and a journey, but there goes The Straight Story.

(If the poll were to happen, I'd actually let people define it however they want. Anything too quirky only gets the one vote, while anything that gets a few votes is therefore a road movie.)

I have fond memories of The Gumball Rally (certainly more than The Cannonball Run)

Convoy
Would Natural Born Killers fit in this?
The Chase (1994 one)
Up In Smoke

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_movies

has some notable ones you are missing.

Radio On

Would probably vote for these from the Wiki list if we did this poll:

Midnight Run
National Lampoon's Vacation
O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Another list: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/roadmovies.html

That link above is quite good (and links to another good list).

I'll add anything anyone specifically mentions on this thread to the Google Doc, and also scan any linked lists and add whatever I've seen and fits.

The list:

http://docs.google.com/document/d/1_Vo7swLaeS1ZCbciqrHKrSzlOm-DozyZBi_lpKIGGtI/edit?usp=sharing

would definitely vote in this poll

also:
The Road (2009)

Logan
Dirty Mary Crazy Larry
The Wizard

(okay maybe not DMCL - they never really cross the county line i think so more of a 'chase' movie)

Mostly I want to do this just for the images--there'd be so many great ones, on the road and otherwise.

http://i1059.photobucket.com/albums/t427/sayhey1/five%20easy%20pieces_zpscm89oqh6.jpg

What's a good road font?

Yeah, chase movies are a subjective call. The Sugarland Express would be near the top of my list, but it's a chase film, and they're temperamentally different--road films ought to be contemplative. (Which The Sugarland Express actually is at times, much credit to Toots Thielemans.) I only ever saw the first Mad Max film, and that's just an action movie to me, not a road film. But maybe it'd win, I don't know.

I'd add Je Tu Il Elle and Vagabond.

Dumb & dumber!

Feel like a ''road movie'' has to have at least a *little* of Huckleberry Finn to it.

Vanishing Point is my favorite road movie

I went down (an Irish road movie, with Brendan Gleeson as a bumbling gangster with amazing sideburns)

The Muppet Movie, ffs!

La Voie lactée
Weekend

Pee Wee's Big Adventure

Beavis and Butt-head Do America

Stand By Me (if you'll allow RAILroad movies)

That pushes the list over 100 (listed La Voie lactée as The Milky Way). I'm a little iffy on Stand By Me as a road movie from what I remember, but I added it. The list includes Road Movie (Joseph Strick, 1974--looks interesting) and Road, Movie. Another list: http://matadornetwork.com/bnt/the-25-best-road-movies-from-around-the-world/.

I should have put the Google Doc link at the top; I'll re-post it periodically so it's not hard to find if you want to check something.

http://docs.google.com/document/d/1_Vo7swLaeS1ZCbciqrHKrSzlOm-DozyZBi_lpKIGGtI/edit

oh, didn't see the Google doc list, i searched this thread for the English title

You didn't miss it--I added it after your post.

As much as I love Withnail & I, I don't consider it as road movie

I've never seen it (never really wanted to for some reason)--just went by a general sense of what I know about it. Maybe it should be removed.

Found my font--has to be a '70s font.

http://i1059.photobucket.com/albums/t427/sayhey1/wendy_zps9ewn6r8r.jpg

http://luc.devroye.org/ITCCruzSwinger--.png

Starman
Paul

Freeway
Smiley Face

Another wikipedia list: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:American_road_movies

I vacillated but it's on that page so:

Follow That Bird

Feel like the borderline cases are what makes this interesting. Is it enough to be a 'road' movie if a chase extends across enough distance? E.g. Saboteur, Near Dark, Empire Strikes Back - essentially their structure has people going from place to place but this hardly makes a 'road' movie IMHO. Or every James Bond picture.

Something about a 'road' movie I think involves some indeterminacy and maybe lack of urgency to the step-by-step of the journey, so there is the possibility of stopping to contemplate something or go through a character moment/escapade prompted by encountering some odd personalities along the way. Or at least, the characters continue to choose to go down the road as opposed to being forced through pursuit. OTOH I'd grant road movie status to O Brother Where Art Thou and most things derived from the Odyssey, and there is plenty of urgent pursuit and urgent goal-seeking there.

And then you have say Fury Road which is a chase movie, but in other ways it hits the beats of a road movie (lives seeking direction, bonding on the road, episodic encounterse, the planned destination proves a mirage, the journey goes on).... just played so fast and intensely that it doesn't feel like it.

I keep thinking of borderline cases that I want to nominate but that might be too borderline (like Waking Life). But, yes, those examples that stretch the definition are the most interesting to me.

ctrl+f "magic mike xxl"

This poll specifically has me fascinated with the idea of road movies that don't cover much geographic space, small-scale odysseys which are still full of unexpected encounters and impact the protagonist(s) in a profound way.

Like does After Hours count? Kinda feels like it should.

Kinda feels like 'they don't travel far enough' isn't sufficient on its own as a road movie disqualifier.

I suspect one aspect here is the length of the journey in terms of time. Feel like movies about one crazy day/night don't count, even if they do carry our protagonists through lots of strange territory and escapades and personal change. You need some space to lay back on the raft and get to know each other, talk about where you're going and what it's all for. So I personally wouldn't count After Hours (or The Warriors for that matter).

Another kettle of fish: the kids' movie version of this - Milo & Otis, Homeward Bound, Land Before Time. Probably not Pinocchio. Haven't seen Finding Nemo. The Wizard, which I nommed above, I think is unambiguously a road movie. The Emperors' New Groove hits a lot of the right notes but is too compressed and frenetic, plus a lot more time arguing about the road than actually traveling down it.

The Brave Little Toaster

Added everything officially nominated (i.e., not all the films mentioned by Dr. C). Definitely a tilt towards comedy that I didn't expect or--truthfully--want. I think of road movies as kind of slow and dreamy, and sparse in both plot and dialogue: Kings of the Road, The Straight Story, Wendy and Lucy, that kind of thing. But I guess most people have a broader definition.

I think I have a pretty similar view of these to yours, and yet I can't for the life of me imagine a workable definition that excludes, say, Planes, Trains and Automobiles. For the most part I think it's okay if nom lists get over-inclusive because some of it just gets sorted in the voting. E.g. I for one can't imagine voting for Wizard of Oz in this. It's an amazing film, but even though it's about a journey down a much-commented-upon road, it doesn't at all feel like a 'road movie' to me.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles and The Wizard of Oz both definitely qualify for me. My definition tends to get more technical. One that I'm wondering about is Goin' Down the Road, which is a favourite of both clemenza and myself, but the characters don't really spend much of the movie on the road. It is a journey film, yes, but like 95% of the film is set in the destination.

Five Easy Pieces (which I just rewatched this weekend, inspired both by this poll and Jack's 80th b'day), might be similarly called into question that only about the middle third of the movie takes place on the road (if that), but in that case the road is clearly representative of the kind of liminal space that the character occupies that it just completely feels like a road movie to me.

*IN that...

You just summed up my feelings re: 'Five Easy Pieces as road movie' so much more succinctly than I could have. Nicely done.

It's more like a state of mind for me too, and Goin' Down the Road has the same feel as Five Easy Pieces to me; it starts on the road, it finishes there (as they head west), and even while they're in Toronto, escape from the city seems to be pulling on them. (And more literally, the road--Yonge St.--is their only happiness while they're there.) It's very much a mood thing that is difficult to explain.

Agree with the idea--have said it many times in connection to other polls--that voting takes care of the vagaries of interpretation. I'll make the nomination list as inclusive as possible, and write-in votes are not a problem. (I would like to make this the voting thread, too--I don't like having these things drag out too long.)

Just noticed the AGO has an upcoming series called "Strange Canada: Canadian Road Movies" led by...Goin' Down the Road.

http://www.ago.net/goin-down-the-road

Only two other films in the series.

Would Ben Wheatley's Sightseers count? And, while I wouldn't vote for it, Magical Mystery Tour must count. How about Walkabout? Not many roads but it has the right 'travelling as symbolism'/'exploration of the land is exploration of the self' vibe for me.

A few more Euro candidates on this BFI list.

I'll add those when I get home later. I was looking at the BFI list a few days ago--I'm sure there are more good non-English nominees.

I'm going to figure out nominating and voting deadlines, and then request a title change for this thread (which can take care of both).

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRC0RAO-bB54Z82eeiuEHoQYiKyCVY41TAnG8Qn7jZpC1Q0RXlq

Sightseers definitely - Dead Man too, I mean the specific feel of a road movie is very much a Jarmusch thing, I feel.

Can't remember the title (and didn't see it) but there was some Canadian film about 20 years ago about young folks traveling to see a Dan Hill concert.

Was it science fiction?

This poll specifically has me fascinated with the idea of road movies that don't cover much geographic space, small-scale odysseys which are still full of unexpected encounters and impact the protagonist(s) in a profound way.

― Sort-of like a Hershey's kiss, only it's an anus (Old Lunch), Sunday, April 23, 2017 2:00 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Feels like maybe Bill Murray's "Quick Change" is an example of this? It has a road movie feel but is confined to two boroughs of NY.

Can we just nominate My Dinner With Andre and get it over with?

It's more like a state of mind for me too, and Goin' Down the Road has the same feel as Five Easy Pieces to me; it starts on the road, it finishes there (as they head west), and even while they're in Toronto, escape from the city seems to be pulling on them. (And more literally, the road--Yonge St.--is their only happiness while they're there.) It's very much a mood thing that is difficult to explain.

OK, you've sold me on GDtR's road movie cred. Not hard to twist my arm on that one, really, as I love it and wanna rep for it.

On the tilt towards comedy: I get why the genre finds the road narrative so appealing, given the endless potential for "wacky things happen on the road" jokes, but I think a few of the comedies here do use the narrative in a more meaningful way than that. Lost in America and NL's Vacation tap into something about the stratification of American society in the 80s: Albert Brooks in LiA quits his job in advertising to literally live out one of the definitive American road narratives, albeit with all of the comforts that yuppie privilege affords. Vacation, for all of its slapstick, sends its middle class suburbanites into an inhospitable American landscape of rural grotesques, inner cities (in the film's most uncomfortable scene) and junk-culture tourist traps (I might even argue that while LiA is the objectively "better" film, Vacation is actually far stickier in its satire). Even my other fave road comedy, Planes Trains & Automobiles, while mainly a love/hate bromance via the sturdy It Happened One Night formula, has a notable trace of yuppie anxiety towards the Other. In other words, I get why the preference/association of the road movie with the moody and contemplative, but it makes perfect sense to me that this is the most popular form that this narrative would take in the 80s.

Roadside Prophets never gets enough love

Updated List: http://docs.google.com/document/d/1_Vo7swLaeS1ZCbciqrHKrSzlOm-DozyZBi_lpKIGGtI/edit

I'll post this on the moderator request thread also, but could the title of this thread be changed to:

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Road Movie Poll (Nominations end Monday, May 1; Voting ends Thursday, May 11--say✧✧✧@rocketm✧✧✧.c✧✧)
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I'll figure out voting details in the next few days. If you miss the nomination deadline, don't worry--I'll count all write-ins.

Some of the address gets blocked; it's --

Willie Mays' nickname at rocketmail dot com.

Does Romy and Michele's High School Reunion belong? Haven't seen it since it came out. I expressed my ambivalence about the comedy end of this poll, but I concede such films are a big part of the genre, and I think that might be one of them. (When I'm not sure, I've been searching "(title) road movie," and if two or three links turn up, I put it on the list.)