Why we picked it – Fond memories for a member of our committee. We are hoping they will turn up on their Harley Davidson

Synopsis – Wyatt and Billy are freewheeling motorcyclists smuggling cocaine from Mexico to Los Angeles. With a large sum of cash, they head east for New Orleans in time for Mardi Gas. They encounter a traditional faming family, a free love commune and preppie lawyer George Hanson, when they are briefly jailed. Hanson tags along for the ride. Stopping to eat at a small-town Louisiana diner, the trio attracts the attention of the locals. They leave without any fuss, but are attacked later with George bludgeoned to death. Wyatt and Billy continue to New Orleans and wander through the Mardi Gras celebration taking an LSD trip. The next morning, as they are overtaken on a two-lane country road by two local men in an older pickup truck, the passenger in the truck reaches for a shotgun. A nihilistic ending.

The film – It explores the societal landscape, issues, and tensions in the USA in the 1960s: the hippie movement, drug use, and communal lifestyle. Peter Fonda had the original idea of a modern Western with two bikers travelling around the country (Wyatt was named after Wyatt Earp and Billy after Billy the Kid). The film was mostly shot without a screenplay, with ad-libbed lines, and production started with only the outline and the names of the protagonists. A landmark counterculture film that sparked a wave of independent filmmaking and became a reference point for the American imagination. An unexpected and spectacular commercial success. Here is Quentin Tarantino talking abut the film.

Director – Dennis Hopper, Writers – Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Terry Southern Cinematography – László Kovács, Baird Bryant

Links imdb The Guardian 50th anniversary review New York Times contemporary review