Two-Lane Blacktop

R

Released Jan 1, 1971

1 hr. 42 min.

Drama

List

93%

40 Reviews

Tomatometer

82%

5,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

In this cult favorite road film, a mechanic (Dennis Wilson) and a driver (James Taylor) live only to race and maintain their 1955 Chevy. Heading east from California with no particular agenda, they give a girl (Laurie Bird) a ride, and en route she incites jealousy between the men by sleeping with them both. Meanwhile, the trio encounters an overbearing GTO driver (Warren Oates) who agrees to race them to New York, each side putting at stake their most prized possession: their car.

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Critics Consensus

Beautifully directed and utterly unique, Two-Lane Blacktop captures the spirit of its era as smoothly as it evokes the feeling of the open road.

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Thomas H

Anyone who ever set out on a doomed road trip will relate to Two Lane Blacktop. What at first seems like an Easy Rider retread quickly veers off from typical road movie sentimentality and becomes lost in the back roads of ennui and a foreboding sense of nihilism.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

03/25/23

Full Review

Bert M

Pointless with no real plot continuity. The actors never smile - seem forever constipated. A cult classic because you would have to be in a cult to think this was a good film.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

02/14/23

Full Review

isla s

This is quite an easy watch - certainly a good diverting film if you like cars, particularly classic cars. Although the film is primarily about a car race, it felt pretty laid back. Its a nice, easy watch with some interesting enough characters, so yes, I'd recommend it, although the story maybe wasn't as clear and it perhaps wasn't as tense and exciting as some perhaps may hope it to be, if you assume it to be a non stop action film.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

William L

"I'd just like to know one thing, are we still racing or what? I've got speed to think about." Warren Oates, you're the dude who picks up every damn hitchhiker he sees. Your life has fallen apart and you're racing a couple of drifters cross-country while toting around hippies and old ladies. Two-Lane Blacktop immediately jumps out at you with its particularly nomadic atmosphere; we are introduced to a pair of protagonists that feel like buccaneers sailing the unpredictable, rolling waves of pre-interstate Route 66. It's a lifestyle that only attracts a few particular personalities, none of them especially well-adjusted; the emotionally reclusive 'Mechanic' and 'Driver' (Wilson and Taylor), the habitual hitchhiker 'Girl', and story-prone 'GTO' (Oates), who drops this little number on you late in the runtime: "if I'm not grounded pretty soon, I'm going to go into orbit." The hum of the engine and the miles under the belt is what keeps these people going, and to slow down is to die. Treating its setting as a refuge and brutal environment alike, Hellman's cult classic is one of the few road movies that feels totally and completely immersed in the identity of the lifestyle, a kinship that brings together plenty of those who would otherwise never meet. When Driver sharply shuts down GTO as he attempts to dive into an expositional tearjerker, it's more than a standoffish comment to prevent things from getting too chummy; it's confirmation that this motley crew is brought together not by background but instead by the path they walk (or rather, drive), no more, no less. And you only see him for a second, but James Mitchum's face is a carbon copy of his father's. (4/5)

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

09/19/21

Full Review

Audience Member

Perhaps all road movies should feel this desolate and uncertain. Hellman's brilliance here is taking a number of elements that shouldn't work (James Taylor's and Dennis Wilson's performances) or should be in a more conventional movie (the cross country race plot point) and mixing them together into something that feels totally unique.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

02/13/23

Full Review

Tony S

Warren Oates saves this film with his character and performance. It's hard to imagine Taylor and Wilson carrying this picture considering the purposeful omission of any background or even motive of the main characters. If you liked Easy Rider you will like this too.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

07/26/21

Full Review

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Monte Hellman

Director

James Taylor

The Driver

Warren Oates

G.T.O.

Laurie Bird

The Girl

Dennis Wilson

The Mechanic

David Drake

Needles Station Attendant

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Paul D. Zimmerman

Newsweek

Heilman's heroes remain insulated from us by their own failures to feel. We are part of the world they pass through invisibly -- and so they remain as foreign and opaque as ever.

Feb 12, 2020

Full Review

David Thomson

The New Republic

It came nowhere close to the numbers on Easy Rider, but it is so much more worthwhile as a film. Indeed, I'm going to push my luck and say there has never been a better film about sweaters.

Jun 20, 2013

Full Review

Nick Schager

Lessons of Darkness

Captures an aura of existential despondence that's married to a far less evocative (and durable) strain of counterculture romantic doom.

Rated: B-

Jun 19, 2011

Full Review

Josh Larsen

LarsenOnFilm

...less about the wheels on the asphalt and more about the headspace that driving can put you in.

Rated: 3/4

Sep 4, 2021

Full Review

Peter Sobczynski

The Spool

A piece of utterly original art-house Americana utterly unlike anything before or after.

Jul 11, 2021

Full Review

Eddie Harrison

film-authority.com

...an arty yet earthy road movie that sits neatly in the slipstream of Easy Rider and Vanishing Point...

Rated: 4/5

May 14, 2021

Full Review

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Synopsis

In this cult favorite road film, a mechanic (Dennis Wilson) and a driver (James Taylor) live only to race and maintain their 1955 Chevy. Heading east from California with no particular agenda, they give a girl (Laurie Bird) a ride, and en route she incites jealousy between the men by sleeping with them both. Meanwhile, the trio encounters an overbearing GTO driver (Warren Oates) who agrees to race them to New York, each side putting at stake their most prized possession: their car.

Director: Monte Hellman
Screenwriter: Will Corry, Rudy Wurlitzer
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Production Co: Universal Pictures
Rating: R
Genre: Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Jan 1, 1971, Wide
Release Date (DVD): Dec 11, 2007
Aspect Ratio: Scope (2.35:1)