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I saw the movie when it first came to our cinema in Whyalla. I loved the bikes and I had a great poster of them on my sleep-out wall. I recall speculating with my friends on how the movie finishes. Was it murder or suicide? A year or so later my parents and I were travelling in our Cortina to Mildura and found ourselves following a bunch of bikies headed in the same direction. One of the pillion riders imitated the Jack Nicholson manoeuvre, i.e., arms spread wide as he stood up on the foot pegs. I knew this was pure Easy Rider - a movie that influenced a generation.

I was 21 when the film came out, it's hard to explain now to the present generation but it was a feeling of the time to find an alternative lifestyle the time of change and big influences in music and culture.Peace and love .Easy Rider came out at just the right time .I love motorcycles and the freedom they give when riding ,nothing like it. Peace out man.

I first saw this classic movie at the now defunct Schonell Cinema at University of Qld in the 1980's. What an eye opener. I loved everything about it; the music, the story, the characters. The promise of a way out of the insanity of the Cold War world where nations were acting like dangerously paranoid lunatics threatening each other with enormous nuclear arsenals. I also liked that the girl I was chasing at the time said I looked like Peter Fonda. That was a good sign :-)

I was in year 10, wagged school, and jumped a train into Sydney to see this at some obscure 'adult' cinema in George St (I think) before it got wider distribution. I was under-age, but it was a quiet weekday, so managed to get in. What a movie! The last movie I had seen was Sound of Music that my aunt had taken me to. I guess Easy Rider represented a coming of age for a generation - from the 'Sound of Music' Menzies era to the 'Easy Rider' years of Gough. It certainly influenced my life in terms of eurekan rebellion against imposed authority and choosing to follow your dreams. I still have the poster up on my garage wall as an inspiration.

I was 12 years old, my dad decided to take me to a drive in, so lucky me i got to see easy rider, was totally amazed of the scenery the roar of the bikes, the life style to be lived, changed my way of thinking, and the music was so anti establishment the bad boy look. I still ride today, the boy on the central coast, california.

i haven't seen this film for 20 years, so my 'recollection' is not so crisp. but the sentiment remains.

i saw this movie 5 times when i was 15 / 16 years old i guess i could never accept the ending a great movie with an equally awesome soundtrack

I'm 50 now. The first & only time I saw the movie was in my early teens where I found it haunting familiar as the movie portrayed the lifestyle my three elder brothers were living. They too met their ending, so its still too close to home to ever watch again.

Funny, but seeing Pulp Fiction and Deliverance later in life jolted me straight back to Easy Rider - the "other side of life" is always a real eye opener.

For now as tribute I'll continue belting out the music to remember these authority questioners....and continue to ride my motorcycle cautiously !!

I lined up to see Easy Rider with my older sister at the Mayfair in Elizabeth St. Sydney in 1970 - it was torn down years ago. They would not let me in as I was only 15 - I was bitterly disappointed as I was very curious about why the movie was for adults only!! I saw the movie the next year or so and was blown away by the music and teh madness

Best movie ever. I grew up with Biker brothers, this movie cofirmede my desire to follow them..

In many ways 'Easy Rider' changed my outlook, if not my life.
To someone just making that awkward transgression from teenager to twentysomething, working as a junior reporter on a provincial weekly newspaper in the north of Ireland at the turn of the 1990s (while nearly all my closest friends were either at uni or on the dole), I was just discovering the music and the hippie subculture of the late '60s - primarily through my love of The Byrds, who were of course such a dominant influence on the film.
It was their music which prompted me to buy the video, that I sat down to watch for the first time with no undue sense of occasion.
'Easy Rider' didn't disappoint. It looked great, it sounded great and made me yearn to have been born 21 years earlier, rather than at the tail end of the year of its release.
Stylistically, it bowled me over, yet I recognised the over-ambitiousness lurking within its substance. It glamourised drugs, dealing and dropping out, sure, and aspects such as the repair of the bike wheel taking place next to a farmer changing a horse's shoe and the New Orleans trip scene were (charmingly) overblown.
However, it was the notion of personal freedom that awoke something in me. Captain America's tossing away of his watch inspired me to ditch mine, for example.
It was Jack Nicholson's character who really articulated the message of the movie for me. His campfire speech of how fear of freedom manifests as anger and aggression in many people hit home at a key stage in my life and answered a lot of questions about how the world works.
Maybe 'Easy Rider' didn't so much change my life, as alter my perceptions. From Belfast, I went on to travel and work in Europe, embracing new surroundings, new experiences and new ways of getting high. Many of these were valuable, probably just as many were fruitless, but the movie certainly was a catalyst for expanding my horizons and for not being so preoccupied with other people's norms and expectations.
I didn't watch it for around 15 years, after getting to know it almost inside-out. What surprised me about revisiting it after so long was that the nostalgic warmth of seeing it again was superseded by the realisation that - as someone judging it through fresh eyes and ears, with a degree of accumulated wisdom - it remained a great film.
Great, not just in the sense of 'very entertaining', but very important, influential and historic.
It also has one of my favourite movie one-liners - delivered by Dennis Hopper as he and Fonda are thrown into a cell for 'marching without a permit', I believe - "Hey, we're HEADLINERS, baby!".
What saddens me today, is that consumerist affluence and complacency dominate the developed world. While technology and transport allow most of us to venture further and more remotely than ever before, the concept of personal freedom appears to be ever more diluted and a commodity many are willing to trade for a more materially comfortable existence.
One can only hope that, like for me when I dabbled with LSD for a few months, it's just a phase that'll eventually see a brighter world.

Wow, what a movie! Saw it in Canberra as an 18yo when it came out in '69. In every way it represented the generational gap I was experiencing in relation to my father re where I wanted to go (the Easy Rider way) and where he wanted me to go (as a result of his experiences in going off to war and coming back to start a new life). The relationship didn't improve after seeing the movie, let me tell ya' - even the red necks and their shotguns could be compared to the fisticuffs the old man and I engaged in once. And, seven years later, when the bride marched down the aisle, it was to the tune of Knights in White Satin.

i was born in 73, and so saw it on vhs and was blown away, and still am. For me it represents the ongoing clash between our slave society and the outer fringe trying to break free. The film is honest and real, and so endures.

I saw this show at the Gateshead drive-in, a bunch of us kids (average age 18 ) went on a mixture of dift bikes ,yammy 175,honda 100's ect but the establishment would not let us in. So we parked our bikes in a neighbours yard and we jumped the fence.I was blown away buy the music and the bike culture and it started me of on my own adventures.I am now 57 and have owned 26 bikes in one form or the other and still have a 76 bultaco parked in the shed although it does'nt get ride much (bad back) but I still watch the dvd every couple of months, love it.

I first saw Easy Rider dubbed in French, which was good as I didn't speak English then! I loved it so much I saw it at least 5 times in English when I came to Australia! It opened the way to a new concept in movie making. Without it (and "Clockwork O"), I think American cinema would have become so stagnant, to bevcome quite boring. I will have to look into getting the DVD!

Was to young to make out the movie when it came out but as far as the music Steppenwolf blew them all away, yes even Jimi. The fact that John Kay & Steppenwolf is not in the "Rock n Roll" Hall of fame, and that Elvis wasn't the first one elected in, it ain't worth being in.
(not to mention Three Dog Night, Grand Funk, Yes, Blood Sweat and Tears and so on).

Great movie that reflected the times that were,counter culture anti establishment against a government that was still entrenched in a war that should'nt of been and a generation that tried to escape it,by any means.
With hits like "Born to be Wild" by Steppenwolf and "The Weight" by The Band,this movie is destined to go from cult to classic.(If it has'nt already done so.)
I saw this movie while in my teens,in the seventies on vhs and i had it on vhs and now on dvd and is still one of my top ten films.

What a fantastic movie this is brought back a few fond memories for us . This is one classic Movie.

Say this classic when I was still at school, it was probably a couple of years old-I live in Perth Western Australia, very isolated city back then, had never seen anything like it and it challenged a lot of my thinking back then.
Later on got into bikes, still ride a Harley 30 years later and with family living in the USA was compeled to get over there and see those scenes, managed 4 trips across and still put EasyRider on every so often, one of those movies that's lives in you head forever.

I love this movie and everything about it, I still watch it at least 3 times a year, it's what it was all about for me.

Melbourne 1970. Teenage years filled with Beatles, Stones, Dylan - Peace and Love, Anti Vietnam War moratoriums, Screw the Sabre Rattling Establishment. Winds of change were blowing.. Kicked out of home for my fledgeling political beliefs and hair over my collar. Easy Rider, a bit "groovey" man but aaaaaahh the music. I was straight [as in not bent], but after that movie couldn't wait to explore anything new and anti-establishment. Fonda, Hopper and Nicholson and for me, a whole new world. Saw Zabriski Point the same day and I was ready for the revolution. Did the "round Oz" motorcycle trip and I still get a hard on when I walk past a good looking motorcycle.

I first saw Easy Rider when I was 321 and it was 1974. It inspired me to travel and the obvious destination was America, USA and Canada.

This movie shows the best and the worst of US society. In America, you can be brave and free, but you still have to conform the rules of American society. It was a subversive movie, and still is, and the contradictions in American society have not changed. Well, not yet.

Full credit to Peter Fonda and Denis Hopper for making this movie, because it took a lot of courage to be brave and free.

I'm still living the movie....

I was shown this film in my first 20th Century History class in 2003, aged 16. What a way for a teenage lad to learn about the century that was!

I am floating back to 1970 when a mob of us hippies took the No.8 tram from our shared pad at No.9 Kensington Rd, South Yarra to Melbourne city to see Easy Rider... We were all on acid and were completely absorbed in the film... I was particularly blown away by the shooting star ending and felt I was floating up too... When we returned to the pad all I wanted to bring me down was to hear the Jimi Hendrix track 'If Six Were Nine' which I think was the track on the film... However if I remember correctly, then I wasn't really there!

I was 16 when I saw it in Townsville in 1969. Can't remember issues about getting in to see it. We just went to the movies all the time and there seemed a rollercoaster of good things to watch post Sound of Music. Maybe the good movie thing all ended when we made Stone and we had our own film industry for a while. Thought the ending was strange. Loved the music. Loved the freedom and the experimentation. It was more than a road movie. It was culturally political. And our parents hated it, which was a good thing. Glad I was there. Glad I have retained the values and experiences from 40 years ago and not got totally screwed by today's affluential emptiness.

I first saw Easy Rider back in the early 1980s, on the big screen at a small-town cinema in New Zealand. I had heard about the film, and of course it seemed like every home I went into as a kid in the 1970s had the poster on the wall (along with the obligatory Farrah Fawcett poster). The music of the film's soundtrack was the biggest drawcard for me - I was very much into the music of the 1960s and early '70s rather than what was then current in 1984 (Hendrix rather than Haircut 100, the Stones rather than the Smiths). The film itself made a huge impression on me as a 15-year-old. It was a strange, sometimes flickering display of acid imagery linked to a strong narrative thread that ended very unpredictably and shockingly - I remember stumbling out of the theatre feeling so cheated and angry that it could end that way, but later realising that - in context - Easy Rider came right at the end of the 1960s and that the counterculture it portrayed was to some extent already dead in 1970. And it was most definitely dead by 1984.

I first watched this movie 8 years ago and I was mesmorised by the music the bikes and the freedom Fonda and Hopper portrayed so well. Anyone who feels sufficated by societies rules, regulations and laws will relate well with these two great actors. The movie makes you want to break the t.v screen and jump in and join along as they ride along fantastic long stretches of lonely country roads. It is easy to loose yourself in the story and ask yourself, "what is life all about?". If you are a fan of Nicholson, this is were you will see him at his absolute best, he plays his character out to perfection, what a brilliant bit of work! Anyway I hope that if anyone has not yet seen this movie, put it on your to do list this week! Fantastic movie, love it! Although be warned "non bikers", after watching this movie you will probably consider buying a bike and riding off into the sunset.

I first saw Easy Rider in a cinema in Paisley,Scotland, on it's first release.

Back in those days, you could smoke in cinemas, and my mates and I were smoking...... ;-)

We got thrown out for joining in on the "Don't Bogart that joint, my friend" song.

We were so impressed with what we had seen that we stayed vaguely sensible and paid to go back in and see the whole film later that night.

It was, and still is, a great film, one of the only two that I have, in later life, bought as a pre-recorded VHS and then on DVD. (The other one is "Tommy")

In a kind of a way, I think Easy Rider influenced me in coming to Oz.

I loved the big long open road bits, but really didn't fancy the ending, so wanted to avoid Americans.

It's hard to live a bikie road movie in Scotland, where everything is only a few hours riding away from everything else.

regards,CrazyCam

Oh how I remember ! I was blown away at the time when I first set eyes on the movie. When it first came out I went every chance I could get I believe it was 22 times in a two year period. I also brought the record old style, I still have it. I just can't say how much this epic movie had done for me, in so many ways it showed me a peaceful way to enjoy oneself without pushing the boundiers. When ever I whatched this movie I always came away excited and in a different frame of mind I always found something new in it everytime. all I can say is ride on ride like the wind free as a bird soring high across this wonderful land high above a spirtual plain drifting to far off lands seeking new adventures till no boundiers remain.

I saw Easy Rider on Yonge Street in Toronto, Ontario, Canada late in the summer of '69 when it was first released and I was twenty. There was my brother and I with his crazy friend Davie who drove us in from Dundas (near Hamilton -- about an hour's drive along the QEW).
The film blew us away of course.
I felt in a daze as we left the theatre, found our car and headed home.
As we were speeding along the Gardiner Expressway the fireworks from the Canadian National Exhibition were flaring to our right over Lake Ontario. Davie kept craning his neck to the bright lights and kept exclaiming "Wow! Oh fucking wow!"
At that moment my brother thoughtfully leaned over and revealed that Davie had dropped a tab of acid at the movie and was just now peaking!
Davie's driving style was pedal to metal as they say so it took a lot to stay cool.
He managed to keep it on the road that night although we were later pulled over by an unmarked OPP cruiser and ticketed for speeding down the QEW. The officer kept asking about the car's engine and configuration since the "family sedan" had been clocked at about 95 mph when we flew passed him and he was impressed.
I always associate Easy Rider with that night.

p.s. On another night, similarly enraptured, Davie did manage to total the "family sedan" and walk away unscathed.

Great Flik,
Gave the joe public a glimps,
But to understand you had to have lived that way,even if just for a while ;-)

I wasn't around alive when it came out, but my dad introduced it to me from a young age and I have watched it countless times and done several school projects on it. I love the freedom and imagery from this film.

Just luuuuvvved that Farah Fawcett poster.

I was impressionable and 15 when I first saw this film in November 69, I also became a bit of a bikie and a bit of a hippie but I never used cocaine or became a drug dealer. It put me off the south of the US for a long time. It was a sad and tragic movie, even though there were good times, the acid trip was freaky, in the cemetery with the oil derricks pumping up and down. I never realised Phil Spector was in it. Lets face it, nearly everyone in our generation was either an alcoholic, a pot smoker, a tripper or a scag head. I still love the music - I thought Peter Fonda was so cool with his sideburns and the ray ban sunglasses - seemed such a waste when him and Billy were blown away by the scum, the filthy bigoted scum that were a reflection of the filthy corrupt governments we had then, and still have in large part today. None of us is free, truly free but I sure like driving and riding long distances through the Territory, we were innocent back then but the movie blew that innocence away.Oh - and rednecks came about because southerners ate a corn rich diet, corn lacks Niacin, which gives you a red neck, thought I'd throw that in for a different discourse, it's been great reading all your contributions - what a generation us boomers are. Now in the Autumn of our lives we can tell our grandchildren all about the folly of the sixties - some like Red Hot Chili Peppers and Green Day still fly the flag. It's a world away from the Indigenous centric world I inhabit now. Far out!

I first saw Easy Rider when I was 15. It blew me away then. I was captivated by the bikes, the music, the travelling, the lifestyle, but not the obvious drugs, even though I was a child of the 60's and 70's. Never got into the whole drug thing much. It blew me away again when I bought the DVD a couple of years ago, because it still stands up as a good story, but more so for me because I worked in TV for 12 years, and was astounded to discover it was shot mostly on 16mm film, and only cost US$360,000 or thereabouts to make! The guy with the shotgun who blows them both away at the and (sorry if you haven't seen it), was picked up literally sitting on the side of a street with one of his friends (the guy driving the pickup truck), and asked if he wanted to be in a movie! Laszlo Kovacs, the Director of Photography, remarked that the camer and he were almost too heavy for the chopper shot at the end, and he had to scream at the chopper pilot to "keep going higher" so he could get that incredible long shot with the burning chopper. And I still haven't been able to afford my first Harley! Damn! Priorities of a married man eh?

great movie with good music,
but have you actually looked up the meaning of celluloid?
Nitrocellulose-based plastics slightly predate celluloid: collodion, invented in 1848 and used as a wound dressing and emulsion for photographic plates, dried to a celluloid-like film.source wikkapedia.
nothing to do with the 1960,really.

The first celluloid as a bulk material for forming objects was made in 1855 in Birmingham, England, by Alexander Parkes, who was never able to see his invention reach full fruition. Parkes patented his discovery after realising that a solid residue remained after evaporation of the solvent from photographic collodion.(source wikkapedia)

the movie has nothing to do with the said.(vinyl yes)
more so it (the movie)reminds me how nowadays everybody is so easely swayed by a misinformed mass media.

just play the music and stop the announcements.
have a nice day.

What an incidence of coincidence - my 14yr old took it out from the video store today! For me it was as crisp and passionate and poignant as when I first saw it all those moons ago, but for him, sadly, it could not compete with the dross of cinematographic pretence pumped to him today.

I was 14 when i first saw Easy Rider,I'm 26 now and i would of seen over a hundred times easy.My dad was the one who showed me this movie because it is his favorite.After watching it it also became my favorite and bought my own copy of it the next day.My favorite scene in the movie would have to be at the roadhouse.Also what a great soundtrack at lot people would say Born To Be Wild is the best track but i would say If Six Was Nine.On another note a great movie that teamed up Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper was called The Trip which was written by Jack Nicholson so if you haven't seen your missing a great movie.

It is is a story about a couple of blokes who make a lot of money selling drugs and then go for a ride on their motorcycles and take more drugs. Oh and have sex with prostitutes.

Not that I'm down on all drugs (hell, I'd be smoking a joint right now if i could be) but is an interesting reflection of the time it was made and the time since.
The domination of pop culture by the Baby Boomers and the orthodoxy of its artifacts.
I like the redneck interpretation of the movie now (and the one that supposedly occurred when the movie was shown regionally and down south in the USA), that is when people cheered when Captain America and the other bloke got wasted at the end!
It is an overrated movie with a good soundtrack and a questionable moral stance.

Great to see the ABC supporting such a pro-drug artifact!

Go home and give your kids some drugs (LSD) right now everyone!!

Well done Aunty!!!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Ern (& great to see you're writing again).

Of course, while we dig Easy Rider, the ABC would never condone illegal activity - now OR in the 60's...

I saw it in 1969 as a 12or 13yo. It changed my life.

Was shattered that people could be so narrow minded and bigoted. The attack at the camp site was very disturbing.

Obviously shortly after we had my lai, moratoriums and prior MLK and Bobby Kennedy but it was the big screen impact of this film that galvanised my thoughts.

I strongly believe that this film had a part in the person who I am today.

Thanks for posting my comments. The copy of the film shown on Australian TV and available in Australia for many years was heavily edited(censored) particularly at the beginning, when the two protagonist are doing the big drug deal that underwrites there journey. Indeed, you could watch this version and be totally unaware of this part of the film. I remembered being baffled by them placing tubes of money in their petrol tank but having to be told about the drug deal. Similar, as a young person the whole tripping scene could be understood without understanding they were tripping. They were just having a GROOVY time.
Reading these comments i can see what an impact the film has had on a great many people and suspect I may under rate because I am at heart a contrarian.
As some one posted it was made on 16mm and for little money(relatively speaking) and featured actors who would go on to be fixtures in film and TV.
It was one of a group of films that was a lamp ligter and inspiration to emerging film makers and artists.
Another film that had an impact and was widely seen and made for next to nothing was Billy Jack and its sequels.
Arguable it(they) don't stand up as well as Easy Rider.

Thank you: It IS great to be writing again.
Love the page, love the thread.

PS: those who love to revisit the excesses, weirdness, romanticism, idealism,HUMOUR and rebelliousness of the late 60's+early 70's keep an eye out for Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice. Ask for it your local library

I have seen a million movies in the last 40 years but this movie remains the most prominent in my mind.
I wanted to be there, on a bike, sitting at the campfire. Bits of this movie come back at most unexpected moments, especially when out riding my softail.