Five Easy Pieces

This article is about the 1970 film. For other uses, see Five Easy Pieces (disambiguation).

Five Easy Pieces
Theatrical release poster
Directed byBob Rafelson
Screenplay byAdrien Joyce
Story by
  • Bob Rafelson
  • Adrien Joyce
Produced by
  • Bob Rafelson
  • Richard Wechsler
Starring
CinematographyLászló Kovács
Edited by
  • Christopher Holmes
  • Gerald Shepard
Production
company
Distributed byColumbia Pictures
Release dates
Running time
98 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$1.6 million
Box office$18.1 million[1]
Karen Black as Rayette

Five Easy Pieces is a 1970 American road drama film[2] directed by Bob Rafelson, written by Rafelson and Carole Eastman (as Adrien Joyce), and starring Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Susan Anspach, Lois Smith, and Ralph Waite. The film tells the story of surly oil rig worker Bobby Dupea (Nicholson), whose rootless blue-collar existence belies his privileged youth as a piano prodigy. When Bobby learns that his father is dying, he travels to his family home in Washington to visit him, taking along his uncouth girlfriend (Black).

The film was nominated for four Academy Awards and five Golden Globe Awards, and was inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2000, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[3][4]

  1. ^ "Five Easy Pieces, Box Office Information". The Numbers. Retrieved January 29, 2012.
  2. ^ Tobias, Scott (September 12, 2020). "Five Easy Pieces at 50: a troubling yet thrilling arrival of a new leading man". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved September 19, 2024.
  3. ^ "Librarian of Congress Names 25 More Films to National Film Registry". Library of Congress. Retrieved October 2, 2020.
  4. ^ "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Retrieved October 2, 2020.