1) NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VACATION (1983)

Whether you're a parent or a kid, this is probably the way you really remember the family road trip: as a Sisyphean obstacle course and endurance test, with one disappointment after another. Of course, when it happens to someone else's family, it's epic-scale funny.



2) SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT (1977)

Get outta Burt Reynolds' way. Burt in his Trans-Am and Jerry Reed in his semi have just a few hours to make the Texarkana-Florida run, and they've got illegal beer to deliver. The quintessential chase movie of Burt's career, and therefore, of the whole 1970s.



3) THE SURE THING (1985)

Gen X's own It Happened One Night, with college students John Cusack and Daphne Zuniga in the Gable and Colbert roles, finding themselves improvising their way across the country. Hey, you'd do whatever it takes not to be trapped in a car with Tim Robbins singing show tunes.



4) PLANES, TRAINS & AUTOMOBILES (1987)

The title says it all, as mismatched travelers Steve Martin and John Candy use every means available to get home for Thanksgiving. Anyone whose road trip ever involved a rental car will appreciate Martin's rant at the leasing agency.



5) EASY RIDER (1969)

Captain America (Peter Fonda) and Billy (Dennis Hopper) mount their choppers to go looking for America but, as the movie's ad tagline noted, couldn't find it anywhere. Instead, in the definitive motorcycle movie, they find alternative communities of overlooked Americans, a wild and wacky Jack Nicholson (in his star-making role), and the dark heart of anti-countercultural backlash.



6) ROAD TRIP (2000)

Not so much a raunchy college romp as an homage to the raunchy college romps of the early '80s (a formula the filmmakers would perfect with Old School), this trek at least has the virtue of inclusiveness. There aren't any freaks or perverts or losers on this ride, just a mismatched set of misfits who all deserve their own shot at pleasure and happiness, however their boats happen to float. (Exhibit A: Tom Green.)



7) DEATH RACE 2000 (1975)

Yes, this movie was remade into a sleek action extravaganza last year, but you have to love the original, pulpy, low-tech version, about a futuristic cross-country demo derby whose drivers get extra points for mowing down pedestrians. The late David Carradine is typically grim as the champ Frankenstein, while the then-unknown Sylvester Stallone is lean and hungry as his challenger.



8) TWO-LANE BLACKTOP (1971)

The most existential of all the existential road movies of its era (Easy Rider, Vanishing Point, Five Easy Pieces, Electra Glide in Blue), this laconic tale of two nameless drag racers stars James Taylor (yes, that James Taylor) and Beach Boy Dennis Wilson, who compete against Warren Oates for girls, car titles, and glory. The real-life Cannonball Run race was inspired by this movie.



9) THE STRAIGHT STORY (1999)

In David Lynch's gentlest movie, a dying WWII veteran (the majestic Richard Farnsworth) is so determined to make peace with his estranged brother that he travels to see him across state lines on a riding lawnmower.



10) THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES (2004)

It's the young Che Guevara (Gael García Bernal) and his friend Alberto Granado (Argentine actor Rodrigo de la Serna, a real-life relative of Che's) doing the Easy Rider thing across South America, on the journey whose encounters with the downtrodden radicalized Che and helped make him the Communist poster boy he still is today.



11) BADLANDS (1973)

Inspired by the Charles Starkweather case and starring an impossibly young Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek, Terrence Malick's first film is a dreamy, strangely beautiful meditation on the twin American loves of the open road and senseless violence.



12) LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE (2006)

Nominated for Best Picture, this dysfunctional-family-on-the-road comedy — starring Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Alan Arkin, Abigail Breslin, Toni Collette, and Paul Dano — plays out like the indie version of National Lampoon's Vacation.



13) CANNONBALL RUN (1981)

Burt Reynolds, Dom DeLuise, and Farrah Fawcett lead the pack in this all-star cross-country underground race. Chaotic comedy ensues. Screenwriter Brock Yates founded the real-life Cannonball race, inspired in turn by a movie: Two-Lane Blacktop.



14) Y TU MAMÁ TAMBIÉN (2001)

Future Motorcycle Diarist Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna travel across Mexico seeking adventure, sex, and wisdom, only dimly aware that all three are accompanying them in the mysterious form of slightly older woman Maribel Verdú.



15) THELMA & LOUISE (1991)

Road trips aren't just for guys. All in all, Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon had a pretty fun time. Except for the whole roadhouse parking lot incident. Oh, and the road trip's last few feet.



16) MIDNIGHT RUN (1988)

Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin compete to see who can do the funnier slow burn as annoyed bounty hunter De Niro drags annoying Mob accountant Grodin across the country, with rival bounty hunters and mobsters in hot pursuit.



17) PAPER MOON (1973)

Smooth con man Ryan O'Neal and even smoother con moppet Tatum O'Neal (in her Oscar-winning role) travel across the Depression-era Dust Bowl, scamming the gullible and each other along the way.



18) SIDEWAYS (2004)

Spend a hilariously uncomfortable week touring California whine country — er, wine country — with a painfully self-absorbed guy who's not quite ready to get married (Thomas Haden Church) and a painfully self-conscious guy who's not quite ready to accept his divorce (Paul Giamatti). Just remember, don't drink and drive; spit first.



19) THE WAGES OF FEAR (1953)

Leave it to the French to turn the road trip genre into an exercise in existential dread — a nail-biting one along bumpy mountain roads in a truck carrying a cargo of nitroglycerine.



20) LOST IN AMERICA (1985)

When you flee the corporate world, sell all your assets, buy a mobile home, and take your nest egg along with you on your journey to find the heart of America, it's probably a good idea not to stop at a Vegas casino along the way.



21) THE LUCKY ONES (2008)

Three soldiers back from Iraq (Rachel McAdams, Tim Robbins, and Michael Peña) bond during a road trip across the United States.



22) PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE (1985)

Like Lolita (and not just in a creepy way), this story of a lad's search for his stolen bicycle is really a celebration of kitschy roadside Americana, from biker bars to tourist traps, from drive-in movie theaters to giant, hollow fiberglass dinosaurs.

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