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Easy Rider is a 1969 American road movie written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Terry Southern and directed by Hopper, about two bikers who travel through the American Southwest and South. It stars Fonda, Hopper, and Jack Nicholson and was produced by Fonda. Easy Rider helped spark the New Hollywood phase of filmmaking during the late sixties.

As a landmark counterculture film  and a “touchstone for a generation” that “captured the national imagination”, Easy Rider explores the societal landscape, issues, and tensions in the United States during the 1960s, such as the rise and fall of the hippie movement, drug use, and communal lifestyle.

The protagonists are two bikers: Wyatt, nicknamed ‘Captain America’ (Fonda), and Billy (Hopper). Fonda and Hopper have said that these characters’ names refer to Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid. Wyatt dresses in American flag-adorned leather, while Billy dresses in Native American-style buckskin pants and shirts and a bushman hat.

After smuggling drugs from Mexico to Los Angeles, Wyatt and Billy sell their contraband to a man (played by Phil Spector) in a Rolls-Royce. With the money from the sale stuffed into the Stars&Stripes-adorned fuel tank of Wyatt’s California style chopper, they ride eastward in an attempt to reach New Orleans, Louisiana in time for Mardi Gras.

During their trip they pick up a hitch-hiker (Luke Askew) and agree to take him to his commune. An odd part to the commune scene is that here are studio sets of Native American tipis in the background as they go up the canyon for swimming, obviously a faux pas. They stay for a few days. Life in the commune appears to be hard, with hippies from the city finding it difficult to grow their own crops. One of the children seen in the commune is played by Fonda’s four-year-old daughter Bridget. At one point the bikers witness a prayer for blessing of the new crop, as put by a communard: A chance “to make a stand,” and to plant “simple food, for a simple taste.” The commune is also host to a traveling theater group that “sings for its supper” (performs for food). The notion of “free love” appears to be practiced, with two women seemingly sharing the affections of the hitch-hiking communard, and who then turn their attention to Wyatt and Billy. As Wyatt and Billy leave, the hitch-hiker (known only as “Stranger on highway” in the credits) gives Wyatt some LSD for him to share with “the right people.”

While jokingly riding along with a parade in a small town, the pair are arrested by the local authorities for “parading without a permit.” In jail, they befriend alcoholic ACLU lawyer George Hanson (played by Jack Nicholson). George helps them get out of jail and decides to travel with Wyatt and Billy. As they camp that night, Wyatt and Billy introduce George to marijuana. As an alcoholic and a square, George is reluctant to try the marijuana (”It leads to harder stuff”), but he quickly relents.

In the middle of the night, the local men return and brutally beat the trio while they sleep. Wyatt and Billy suffer minor injuries, but George is killed by a machete strike to the neck. Wyatt and Billy wrap George up in his sleeping bag, gather his belongings, and vow to return the items to his parents.

They continue to New Orleans and find the brothel which had been recommended by George. Taking two prostitutes, Karen (Karen Black) and Mary (Toni Basil), with them, Wyatt and Billy decide to go outside where the Mardi Gras is going on. They wander the parade-filled streets of New Orleans. They end up in a cemetery, where all four ingest LSD. They all experience a psychedelic bad trip infused with Catholic prayer, represented through quick edits, sound effects and over-exposed film.

In the end, though Billy remains oblivious, Wyatt declares: “You know Billy, we blew it.” Wyatt realizes that their search for freedom, while financially successful, was a spiritual failure. The next morning, the two are continuing their trip to Florida (where they hope to retire wealthy) when two rednecks in a pickup truck spot them, and decide to “scare the hell out of them” with their shotgun. As they pull alongside Billy and insult him, Billy sticks his middle finger up at them. In response, one of the men fires the shotgun at Billy and seriously wounds him, perhaps by accident. Wyatt immediately turns around to see his friend crashed and bleeding on the side of the road. As Wyatt goes for help, one of the rednecks fires at him as he speeds by the pickup. The shot hits the gas tank of Wyatt’s bike, causing it to explode. The explosion not only kills Wyatt, but also destroys the money - which was what they had staked their life on. From the flaming bike on the side of the road, the camera ascends towards the sky, and the duo’s journey “looking for America” ends once and for all.

During the test shooting, Hopper, legendary at the time for his drug excesses and paranoia, tyrannized the crew so much that everyone quit. At one point he entered into a physical confrontation with photographer Barry Feinstein, who was one of the camera operators for the shoot. After the turmoil in New Orleans, Hopper and Fonda decided to assemble a proper crew for the rest of the film.

According to Terry Southern’s biographer, Lee Hill, the part of George Hanson had been written for Southern’s friend, actor Rip Torn. When Torn met with Hopper and Fonda at a New York restaurant in early 1968 to discuss the role, Hopper began ranting about the “rednecks” he had encountered on his scouting trip to the South. Torn, a Texan, took exception to some of Hopper’s remarks, and the two almost came to blows, as a result of which Torn withdrew from the project and had to be replaced by Jack Nicholson. In 1994, Hopper was interviewed about Easy Rider by Jay Leno on The Tonight Show, and during the interview, he alleged that Torn had pulled a knife on him during the altercation, prompting Torn to successfully sue Hopper for defamation.

The hippie commune had to be recreated from pictures and shot near Santa Monica, California overlooking Malibu Canyon, since the New Buffalo commune near Taos in Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico did not permit shooting there.

Most of the film is shot outside with natural lighting. While this can be attributed to the film being a road movie, at the time Hopper said all the outdoor shooting was an intentional choice on his part, because “God is a great gaffer.” The production used two five-ton trucks, one for the equipment and one for the motorcycles, with the cast and crew in a motor home. One of the locations was Monument Valley.

The restaurant scenes with Fonda, Hopper and Nicholson were shot in Morganza, Louisiana. The men and girls in that scene were all Morganza locals. In order to incite more vitriolic commentary from the local men, Hopper told them to play the scene as if Billy, Wyatt, and George had raped a girl outside of town. The scene in which both Captain America and Billy were shot was filmed on Highway 105 North just outside of Krotz Spring, Louisiana, and the two men in the scene were Krotz Springs locals.

While shooting the cemetery scene, Hopper tried to convince Fonda to talk to the statue of the Madonna as though it were Fonda’s mother (who had committed suicide when he was 10 years old) and ask her why she left him. Although Fonda was reluctant, he eventually complied. Later on, he used this scene as leverage to persuade Bob Dylan to allow the use of “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”.

Despite being filmed in the first half of 1968, roughly between Mardi Gras and the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, with production starting on February 22 the film did not have a U.S. premiere until July of 1969, after having won an award at the Cannes film festival in May. The delay was partially due to a protracted editing process. One of Hopper’s proposed cuts was 220 minutes long, inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey (film). From his extensive use of the “flash-forward” narrative device, wherein scenes from later in the movie are inserted into the current scene, only one flash-forward survives in the final edit, when Wyatt in the New Orleans brothel has a premonition of the final scene. At the request of Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider, Henry Jaglom was brought in to edit the film into its current form, with Hopper effectively removed from the project. Upon seeing the final cut, Hopper was extremely pleased, claiming that Jaglom had crafted the film the way Hopper had originally intended. Despite the large part he played in shaping the film, Jaglom only received credit as an “Editorial Consultant.”