The road trip movie scratches a very particular itch. There’s something entirely irresistible about its blend of comfort and escapism, adventure and self-discovery, and a good dose of ‘maybe the real journey was the friends we made along the way’.
As much about embarking on a trip across an internal, emotional landscape as traversing a physical one that sprawls across desert highways or old country roads, the road movie is a promise of transportation: perhaps the second-best thing to hitting the road on a journey to nowhere yourself. Here are 10 of the very best road trip movies the genre has to offer, available to stream now. It’s up to you to choose your own adventure.
Y tu mamá también (2001)
Love, sex, friendship, self-discovery, and cinema’s most memorable bro-code: Alfonso Cuarón’s timeless Y tu mamá también has got it all. Shot with a charmingly rustic documentary-realist style, and with the delightfully irreverent humour of the ‘your mom’ joke in its title, this winsome three-hander features a very young Diego Luna, and his IRL bestie Gael García Bernal (also very young). Two teenage boys embark on a road trip across Mexico with a beautiful older woman grappling with her husband’s infidelity, and the life lessons find them. The final few minutes of this gorgeous film transpose it into an utterly heart-rending emotional gutpunch. The very best the genre has to offer. Amazon.co.uk
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Is there any other vehicle in a movie more instantly recognisable or iconic than that yellow Volkswagen camper van? This list would be heinously incomplete without Little Miss Sunshine, a film that lands us in the backseat with a dysfunctional family driving their youngest daughter, Olive, 800 miles across the country to compete in the eponymous Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. As sunny and charming as that signature lemon yellow, it’s probably the classic American road movie – one that interrogates just what the American dream tries to sell. Disneyplus.com
Paris, Texas (1984)
Shot on warm, textured 35mm that filters its every frame through a magical sense of nostalgia, Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas is a beautifully lyrical journey across the Texan desert. Starring Harry Dean Stanton as Travis Henderson, an estranged father and brother reunited with his family after being discovered mysteriously mute in West Texas, it is a wonderfully affecting rumination on human connection, memory, and coming to terms with the past as the past. Quietly devastating, and unforgettably gorgeous to witness. Amazon.co.uk
Hit The Road (2021)
People were keen to describe Panah Panahi’s feature debut Hit The Road as an ‘Iranian Little Miss Sunshine’, but while that may have been useful shorthand for ‘family road movie in Iran’, that’s where the comparison stops. In the vein of the best Iranian cinema (of which Panahi’s father, Jafar Panahi, is a giant), Hit The Road cloaks an immensely heartbreaking story about a family attempting to smuggle their son out of the country within a riotously funny, endlessly charming tragicomic road trip film, where you’re bound to fall in love with every member of the family strapped into this too-small, too-hot car with one Very Noisy, very lovable kid. A film about smuggling that feels like an act of smuggling itself, amongst ever-tightening censorship in Iran, Panahi’s Hit The Road is a miraculous journey that deserves our rapturous attention. Amazon.co.uk
The Doom Generation (1995)
Celebrated queer auteur Gregg Araki has several films that could’ve made it onto this list – but The Doom Generation is one of his most iconic. Part of his Teenage Apocalypse trilogy, this sexed-up, luridly-coloured subculture joyride follows three horny, violent, and pretty deranged teenagers on the run from the police. It’s a nihilistic love letter to the liminal spaces of seedy motels and too-bright convenience stores – which, if anything, must be some of the most important iconography of the American road movie. Amazon.co.uk
My Own Private Idaho (1991)
My Own Private Idaho begins on a highway, and ends on a highway. Starring River Phoenix as a narcoleptic street hustler and Keanu Reeves as the son of a mayor, Gus Van Sant’s road movie is a queer cinema classic: a soft yet estranging journey to seek love, belonging, and self-discovery even in places you know you won’t find it. Tender and heartbreaking, with perhaps one of the most devastating scenes of a character confessing their love ever put to screen, this is a film unparalleled in mood and yearning. Amazon.co.uk
Pierrot le Fou (1965)
One of cinema’s finest and most irresistibly charming leading men, Jean-Paul Belmondo, stole and will continue to steal hearts for decades to come with his iconic turn in Godard’s French New Wave classic, Pierrot le Fou. An unhappily married man recently fired from his job decides to leave his wife and kids, and run away with an old flame – who, by the way, is being hunted down by Algerian hitmen. Talk about spicing it up! The two hitch a ride on a dead man’s car, embarking on a crime spree from Paris to the Mediterranean, and mad chemistry – amongst other explosive things – ensues. Amazon.co.uk
Almost Famous (2000)
If we had to pick one road trip on this list that we’d actually go on, it’d probably be to kick back with Stillwater, Penny Lane, and the rest of the impeccably-dressed crew of Almost Famous. Nothing sounds more fun than going on tour with a shit-hot band whose frontman is a swoonworthy Billy Crudup. The kind of coming-of-age story that applies no matter what age you revisit it at, Almost Famous is a feel-good ride into the world of rock-n-roll: stardom, adoration, community. Incidentally, one of the most fun movies about a journalist ever made. Amazon.co.uk
Bones and All (2022)
Luca Guadagnino’s cannibalistic love story – starring Gen-Z heartthrobs Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell as teen cannibals on a road trip into the guts of sun-bleached, summer Americana – is already an unforgettable addition to the road movie canon. Guadagnino’s inimitable knack for full-blooded romance and nostalgic atmosphere will devour you whole in this violent yet desperately romantic film: one that comes to rest deep in your bones. Amazon.co.uk
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Listen, we’ve all probably been on a family road trip that’s felt somewhat apocalyptic. George Miller gets it: this is the best movie ever made about being stuck in a car and fighting for your life. So in all aspects but physical, isn’t Fury Road incredibly relatable? Jokes aside, because we take Fury Road incredibly seriously, if road trip movies were scored based on the criteria of gnarliness, head-spinning momentum, and Sick Monster Truck deco, this one speeds right to the top of the list. Amazon.co.uk
