Five Easy Pieces

"We'd had a revelation. This was the direction American movies should take: Into idiosyncratic characters, into dialogue with an ear for the vulgar and the literate, into a plot free to surprise us about the characters, into an existential ending."

"Rafelson is expert at supporting this movement, and the film proceeds from scene to scene with a quiet competent modernism that bespeaks quality, but that more often begs than provides expression."

"The film's nervewracking quality is consistent with its content. Nicholson's performance is a remarkably varied and daring exploration of a complex character, equally convincing in its manic and sober aspects."

"It's not a particularly subtle film, but it is a magnificently insightful and engaging one, flipping effortlessly from icy realism to heated melodrama while always maintaining a darkly comic, at times quietly satirical undercurrent."

"Both spirited road movie and existential journey."

"The flaws of this acutely self-conscious 1970 road picture grow more obvious with every passing year, but so does its passion and eloquence."

"A very modern film. Elliptical, absurdist, harshly humorous, convulsively lyrical."

"A key turn-of-the-decade film, with Nicholson railing against waitresses and barking at noisy dogs as Rafelson observes seedily picturesque roadside America."