MovieChat Forums > Five Easy Pieces (1970) Discussion > Similar movies to see. Recommend!!!

Similar movies to see. Recommend!!!


Well, there has been some other comparisons on this board, like Good Will Hunting and I don't know what else. Anyway, when I saw Five Easy Pieces, the character reminded me of Cool Hand Luke. Both youngsters, fairly brilliant (i.e. they're outsiders not for lack of capacity; unlike Midnight Cowboy which other poster has compared FEP to), disillusioned about their social environment, and without a clue as to what to do with their lives (of course, Paul Newman is lovable, and Nicholson's character is not). I could say the same about the same Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
What other movies would you say has the same kind of character and problematic situation?

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View Hopper's "Out of the Blue"

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"The Passanger" also with Nicholson.

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Another must see is Barbara Loden's "Wanda" - a woman drop-out this time.
Paul Morrisey's trilogy (Flesh/Trash/Heat)would not be a bad choice either.

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Into the wild is certainly a recommendation for people who liked five easy pieces. However , into the wild was (unlike the book) marred (if slightly) by the same inhibitations many modern (indie type) films seem to have, pretentiousness...

Not necessarily something bad and also like many things in the eye of the beholder! (am I not pretentious myself now?) and who gives a damn about that anyway ,uh?

May I also be so free as to recommend a different but yet great film in similar "style" called "sideways" probably known already ,by many who like FEP.

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Sideways i a great movie. I'd say it's a little more mainstream than FEP and much lighter, but they're both great.

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Into the Wild is an excellent suggestion. That character was also from an educated upper class family, and he runs away to Alaska. I'll put another suggestion or 2 in a separate post.

Dini

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Bingo ! I couldn't remember the title, but that's one of those, "what is this movie really about?" things. While I like my share of straight-forward, plot-driven, entertainment type films, Five EP and Passenger are both compelling in their quiet. oblique ways.

I'm not a woman much less Deanna Durbin, but the old-time glam-shot appeals to me.

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Badlands, by Terrence Malick. Very similar in many ways. I think I liked Five Easy Pieces more, though.

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Heat/Trash/Flesh weren't that great either... although nice to see New York in the early seventies, they also had a 'superficial plotline'.




"I think someone should just take this city and just... just flush it down the *beep* toilet."

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Badlands is an excellent suggestion. I'd also throw "Electra Glide in Blue" out there, maybe more for feel and time period, than storyline.

I'm not that proud of everything I've done, but I'm not that ashamed, either.

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Less famous suggestion : little known canadian movie called GOING DOWN THE ROAD by Don Shebib (early 70s) ... Good luck finding it, though, but its tone is very similar to 5EP ..

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How about THE GRADUATE? Both have smart/bored/alienated protagonists looking for a way out of the deadening lives proscribed to them by society. Which is what a lot of people were doing in the late 60s and early 70s--and will always be doing, I guess. I mean, I can relate to both TG and FEP, and I'm in my 30s, and it's the year 2008. These 2 movies are universal and timeless.

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How about The Indian Runner by Sean Penn? That is his greatest film.

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Jack Nicholson played a similar role in THE LAST DETAIL. A badass sailor that's disillusioned about his environment. The scene when he's buying a drink in a bar is similar to the diner scene in FIVE EASY PIECES.

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If you like Cool Hand Luke then you will like I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, which I prefer to Cool Hand Luke.

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scarecrow with gene hackman and dustin hoffman.
mikey and nicky? or is it nicky and mikey with john cassavettes and peter falk.
a little light hearted, but nobody's fool with paul newman, and certainly hud as well.
buffalo '66... young adam is similar in its protagonist ewan mcgregor

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The King of Marvin Gardens

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how about lost in translation and broken flowers

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You could. But those are sort of spolied upper-middle class nitwits. They are sad, but it's hard to really care about their plight.

Scarecrow, if you bring that movie up, you must at some point mention that it is like an Edward Hopper painting, that is has his “mood”, otherwise no one will believe you understand the movie.

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UM........ Al Pacino was in scarecrow not hoffman, and another film like this is Hud, well kind off both characters are ass holes

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i came here to recommend 'the last detail', but someone beat me to it.

so i'll recommend 'being there' directed by hal ashby, who also directed 'the last detail'.

and ewan mcgregor wasn't in 'buffalo 66', that was vincent gallo.

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[Sort of Spoiler Included]

I agree with HUD, because in HUD, unlike Nobody's Fool, Paul Newman's character stays aloof and carries out his usual behavior until all of his relationships are gone - like Bobby Dupea in FEP.

My real name is Jeff

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I would compare the character of Robert/Bobby to Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate, or Holden Caufield in Catcher in the Rye-although a movie has never been made of CITR. They are both intellectual-(in a way), from upper class backgrounds, and full of angst. There's that word again!
Dini

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Five Easy Pieces, one of my favorite films of all time. For me personaly it's part of a certain context; a certain mood or movement if you will. Late 60s to late 70s was the so called second 'Golden Age Of American Cinema'. Movies were becoming more personal, more humanistic and pure. Even more raw and unpolished. For me Five Easy Pieces is part of a string of films like Easy Rider ('69/D. Hopper), Midnight Cowboy ('69/J. Schlesinger), The Conversation ('74/F. Coppola), Lenny ('74/B. Fosse), Last tango in Paris ('72/B. Bertolucci), King of Marvin Gardens ('72/B/ Rafelson), Carnal Knowledge ('71/M. Nichols), The Last Detail ('73/H. Ashby), Taxi Driver ('76/M. Scorsese), Straight Time ('77/U. Grossbard) and some other films like Tales of ordinary madness ('81/M. Ferreri), Raging Bull ('80/M. Scorsese), Bobby Deerfield ('77/S. Pollack). All are films about alienated individuals - men mostly - who are struggling with life and themselfs. Searching for freedom or salvation of some sorts. Humanistic pieces about the modern (atleast modern than) struggle in American life. Some other greats are John Cassavetes' Woman under the influence ('74) and Killing of a chinese bookie ('76).

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