‘The Bikeriders’ and the ‘Dudes Rock’ Movie Canon, Plus ‘Kinds of Kindness’

‘The Bikeriders’Sean Fennessey, Amanda Dobbins, Chris Ryan, with Bobby Wagner

The Bikeriders 2024

Jeff Nichols's first film since 2016, built from Danny Lyon's 1960s photo book about a Midwest motorcycle club (the Vandals). Jodie Comer narrates as Kathy in a big Midwest accent Nichols says is close to the real recordings; Austin Butler is the pristine, barely-speaking Benny; Tom Hardy plays club founder Johnny with a Cagney-by-way-of-Brando voice. Everyone clocks the Goodfellas debt (freeze-frames, narration, the Karen role, an electric-mud needle drop that inverts the Scorsese cut). Sean and Amanda loved it; Sean thinks it lacks a Goodfellas-sized statement about America, Amanda bought the accent completely. Bobby Wagner (Bob) dissents: an Austin Butler allergy and a setting that felt broad, not specific. Also in it: Michael Shannon, Mike Faist as the Lyon stand-in, Norman Reedus, Boyd Holbrook, Toby Wallace, Damon Herriman as Brucie.

The ‘Dudes Rock’ Movie CanonChris Ryan's homework: movies where groups of guys hang out and do cool shit

The Hunt for Red October 1990

Sean's contested entry: dudes rocking in collaboration across the Berlin Wall, though there's no getting-the-gang-together montage.

Rio Bravo 1959

Chris's platonic ideal: hanging in a saloon, and a five-minute scene of Wayne, Brennan, Nelson, and Dean Martin just singing.

The Wild Bunch 1969

One way to be a dude: a band of bandoleros headed to Mexico to kill and steal.

The Great Escape 1963

First-ballot: McQueen throwing a baseball against the wall in solitary is the small gesture that seals it.

The Magnificent Seven 1960

In the hallowed halls The Bikeriders is paying homage to.

Goodfellas 1990

The genius model: you want in even as it destroys them. Sean forgot he'd put it on his own list.

The Sting 1973

The dude gesture can be as small as touching your nose.

Husbands 1970

Cassavetes: three men on a messy weekend after a friend's death. Dudes rocking while broken.

Kicking and Screaming 1995

Can you intellectually rock? Sean's admitted formative influence as a podcaster.

California Split 1974

Altman's two-hander of gambling and melancholy, Segal and Gould. A movie Sean identifies with.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World 2003

No women aboard; Bettany on cello, iguanas discovered. Badly needed on The Rewatchables.

The Right Stuff 1983

Auto-yes. If Sam Shepard's in it, it's a Dudes Rock movie.

Top Gun 1986

Mules and Ryan are in it, but when the rocking happens (volleyball, the bar sing-along), no women about.

Great Balls of Fire! 1989

The Dennis Quaid Jerry Lee Lewis picture, cued off Top Gun's Jerry Lee singalong.

Reservoir Dogs 1992

In play, though it tips toward men torturing one another.

Ronin 1998

A singular samurai-man rocks, but he distrusts his own crew, and Natasha McElhone may have too many lines.

Magic Mike 2012

They get the gang together, hit transcendent highs, peter apart, and are mostly okay.

The Nice Guys 2016

Late-period entry; a two-hander that still counts.

Triple Frontier 2019

Chris's modern pick.

Ford v Ferrari 2019

Does two make a band? Plenty of dudes on the teams either way.

Everybody Wants Some!! 2016

The Linklater college-baseball hang, more the mellow strain of rocking.

Midnight Run 1988

A two-hander dude's rock, right in line with The Nice Guys.

Ferrari 2023

Even a solitary-genius film has a dinner-table scene where many dudes rock.

Heat 1995

Invoked via the hot-De Niro photo; the crew rocks, hard.

‘Kinds of Kindness’Sean Fennessey, Amanda Dobbins

Kinds of Kindness 2024

Lanthimos's return to his early, absurdist mode: a 2-hour-45 triptych co-written with Efthimis Filippou, loosely linked by control (work, love, cult). Amanda's annoyed at her own lukewarm response; both agree the first film, 'The Death of RMF,' is strongest, anchored by Jesse Plemons rather than Emma Stone, who gets her one-per-movie breakdance in the third. Cast doing weird stuff: Stone, Willem Dafoe, Plemons, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Joe Alwyn. It's mannered and hard to sell, but the marketing found an angle: Stone dancing in a commercial.

In conversationSean Fennessey with the writer-director

Jeff Nichols on

Shotgun Stories 2007

His debut, made with David Gordon Green's help; the big-emotional-scale ambition was there from the start.

Jeff Nichols on

Take Shelter 2011

'I already remade Poltergeist — it's called Take Shelter.' Written the same 2008 summer as Mud, after another project collapsed.

Jeff Nichols on

Mud 2012

He turned down a million-dollar Poltergeist remake to make this at DGA scale, as long as McConaughey said yes.

Jeff Nichols on

Loving 2016

The historical drama that read as his most Hollywood-digestible, until The Bikeriders.

Jeff Nichols on

Midnight Special 2016

Released the same year as Loving; after it, he felt he needed to 'refill the well.'

Jeff Nichols on

A Quiet Place: Day One 2024

He wrote a draft of the prequel for John Krasinski, then stepped away when it stopped feeling like his, and it opened against The Bikeriders in June. 'Sickly ironic.'

Jeff Nichols on

Dunkirk 2017

One of his favorite films, and his case for Tom Hardy: a badass in a mask in a cockpit the whole time.

Jeff Nichols on

Hud 1963

His last great emotional experience watching something: revisited for a list, the longhorn scene brought him to his knees.

Jeff Nichols on

Past Lives 2023

A recent film that moved him: the wistful sense of the other lives you could have lived.

Also mentioned raised along the way

The Bikeriders' movie DNA The Wild OneEasy RiderLawrence of ArabiaThe Outsiders

Jodie Comer, elsewhere Free GuyThe Last DuelThe End We Start From

When the gals rock Steel MagnoliasGirls TripMean GirlsBridesmaidsBacheloretteAugust: Osage CountyThe Favourite

Lanthimos, before this DogtoothAlpsThe LobsterThe Killing of a Sacred DeerPoor Things

Nichols's near-misses Alien NationPoltergeistA Quiet PlaceGoatKillers of the Flower MoonPineapple Express

The films they came up watching BadlandsDays of HeavenThe Thin Red LineGeorge WashingtonThe Bridge on the River Kwai

In passing A Complete UnknownA Perfect WorldField of DreamsThe PostmanJFKInside Out 2LoganVenomPump Up the VolumeSlackerJerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind

Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads

TV House of the DragonDancing with the StarsNarcosWe Own This CityBlack MirrorThe Twilight ZoneAre You Smarter Than a Celebrity?Talk the ThronesHouse of RThe Midnight BoysThe WatchTrial by Content

Web Letterboxd

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