For TBC’s Video Mix series, our team of movie and TV experts makes recommendations so that you’re never stuck with a million streaming services and nothing to watch.
For some, summer is a time of rest and relaxation. For others, the oppressive humidity and beating sun spark despair and desperation—people make decisions that they wouldn’t have if the heat weren't scrambling their brains. The following films are about what happens in the moments after drastic decisions get made, when people in tough situations have to choose to fight or to fly down the road at high speed, hoping to outrun their problems (and maybe create some new ones along the way).
Pierrot Le Fou (1965)
This colorful feature, French new wave icon Jean-Luc Godard’s 10th, centers on a married man who hits the road with an ex-girlfriend who’s wanted by a terrorist organization. Crimes, calamity, philosophical monologues, and slapstick violence ensue.
Where to Watch: VOD
Badlands (1973)
Before he established his style as one of American cinema's most poetic narrative filmmakers, Terrence Malick debuted with Badlands, which stars Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek tearing across the country in a Mercury Coupe. Sheen’s character, Kit, solves most problems with a bullet, digging a deeper hole for himself as their road trip unfolds.
Where to Watch: VOD
Thelma and Louise (1991)
Ridley Scott’s classic fishing-trip-gone-awry story is one of the most influential texts of the genre—and its iconic ending has become part of the enduring visual language of any film that sends its characters out on the road. Before they reach that point, however, Geena Davis’ Thelma and Susan Sarandon’s Louise exhibit a tenderness, humor, and intimacy that’s led some to describe the movie as a metaphor for “queer freedom.”
Where to Watch: Prime Video, VOD
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The Living End (1992) and The Doom Generation (1995)
Gregg Araki’s pair of ultra-stylized, ultra-violent road movies are more explicitly engaged in dialogues about queerness, criminality, and the AIDS crisis. The Living End and The Doom Generation are bleak yet brilliant, each demonstrating Araki at the height of his hedonistic powers, positing his characters’ crime sprees as rebellions against a world that doesn’t care about them.
Where to Watch: Criterion Channel
Sun Don’t Shine (2012)
Known first as a prolific actor, Amy Seimetz established herself as a force of American independent cinema with the noirish thriller Sun Don’t Shine. Set in her native Florida, the film—which centers on a couple running for reasons that are at first unclear—captures the sticky, seedy side of the Sunshine State. It’s a place where anything can happen, but very little of it will be good.
Where to Watch: MUBI, VOD
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