Board 8 > Board 8 Watches and Ranks Road Comedies - films/sign-ups/hype/etc. (take 2)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Please note the change in film line-up. It Happened One Night has been swapped out for Sideways due to the former having appeared on a prior list.

Road comedies have long been a favorite sub-genre of mine. I've always enjoyed watching families, friends, and even strangers trek across the country and seeing what kind of zany hijinks they get into and crazy characters they come across. Now, we all get to share the adventures together.

If you've participated before, you know the drill. If you haven't, here are the rules: Watch all 30 films on the list, rank them, and submit your ranking, with a brief write-up on each one, to [email protected] (and to ensure that I received every list, please make sure you post in this topic that you sent it so if there's an issue I can ask you to re-submit or send it another way). Once that's done, I'll compile the lists and count them down from worst to first. All are welcome and encouraged to participate. Oh, and despite the term "sign-ups" being in the topic title, that's mostly a formality. You don't need to officially sign up here, nor are you committed if you say you're in and then don't see it through for any reason.

The deadline to submit a list is Monday, November 27th, 2023. This may be extended as deemed necessary.

But I know what you all REALLY want to know. What movies are we watching? Here's our roadmap with all the pitstops...

The List:
Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
The Great Race (1965)
Smokey and the Bandit (1977)
The Muppet Movie (1979)
The Cannonball Run (1981)
National Lampoons Vacation (1983)
Stranger Than Paradise (1984)
Lost in America (1985)
Pee-Wees Big Adventure (1985)
Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)
Thelma & Louise (1991)
Dumb and Dumber (1994)
Tommy Boy (1995)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
Road Trip (2000)
Rat Race (2001)
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004)
Sideways (2004)
Are We There Yet? (2005)
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006)
The Bucket List (2007)
Wild Hogs (2007)
College Road Trip (2008)
Due Date (2010)
Paul (2011)
Were the Millers (2013)
Father Figures (2017)
Bad Trip (2021)
Dog (2022)

*Some of these films have extended, unrated, or director's cut versions. Please watch the theatrical version of every film, including the 160-minute general release version of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (rather than the extended roadshow cut).

On your mark, get set, go!

Sorry guys that one's on me.

I should have caught it before the topic was posted, but it was just such a forgettable movie and I didn't realize we had already done it until I started watching it and thought 'wow this seems familiar'.

was Little Miss Sunshine on a previous list? I could swear that I remember reading writeups for it here once, but I could be misremembering things since I don't remember offhand what list it could have been on.

It wasn't on the spreadsheet, although I've been told that's outdated.

We have not done Little Miss Sunshine yet. Roadtrip is really the only genre that it would fit in.

Yeah I wouldn't mind doing a movie that was covered before if it was one that hasn't been done in a while and was a really good fit, but yeah romcoms is still fairly recent all this considered and even then the movie was pretty unpopular

Some real bangers on this list. Can't wait for some of these rewatches!

There are quite a few movies on this list that I've been meaning to watch. Likely won't have time to watch all 25 here that I haven't seen but I might start with some and see how it goes.

Tag again!

Johnbobb posted...

Yeah I wouldn't mind doing a movie that was covered before if it was one that hasn't been done in a while and was a really good fit, but yeah romcoms is still fairly recent all this considered and even then the movie was pretty unpopular

I probably would have increased it a rank or two if I had participated in that list, since I get into old movies.

Mythiot posted...

I probably would have increased it a rank or two if I had participated in that list, since I get into old movies.

Eh, I mean I like old movies too, but even I didn't care for it much

According to the average scores on Letterboxd, It Happened One Night would have been the second-best movie on the list, behind Little Miss Sunshine.

Evillordexdeath posted...

According to the average scores on Letterboxd, It Happened One Night would have been the second-best movie on the list, behind Little Miss Sunshine.

It also had the highest RT score

Copy/pasting the streaming service info johnbobb and darkx put together last topic!

Youtube/Tubi
Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
Rat Race (2001)

Roku
Smokey and the Bandit (1977)
Rat Race (2001)

Disney+
The Muppet Movie (1979)
College Road Trip (2008)

Max
Stranger Than Paradise (1984)
Are We There Yet? (2005)
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Wild Hogs (2007)

Vudu
Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006)

Hulu
Due Date (2010)
Were the Millers (2013)

Netflix
Bad Trip (2021)

Pluto
Father Figures (2017)Peacock has Paul and Are We There Yet?

Max also has Tommy Boy and Dumb and Dumber.

Pluto also has IAMMMMW.

Paramount+ has Thelma & Louise and Rat Race.

Prime Video has Dog included with subscription.

Underleveled posted...

It also had the highest RT score

I'm concerned if even the best movie on the list isn't very good :p

Evillordexdeath posted...

I'm concerned if even the best movie on the list isn't very good :p

For what it's worth, there are a ton of movies from the 30s and 40s with very high critic scores that don't hold up today.

Suprak_the_Stud posted...

Copy/pasting the streaming service info johnbobb and darkx put together last topic!

Youtube/Tubi
Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
Rat Race (2001)

Roku
Smokey and the Bandit (1977)
Rat Race (2001)

Disney+
The Muppet Movie (1979)
College Road Trip (2008)

Max
Stranger Than Paradise (1984)
Are We There Yet? (2005)
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Wild Hogs (2007)

Vudu
Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006)

Hulu
Due Date (2010)
Were the Millers (2013)

Netflix
Bad Trip (2021)

Pluto
Father Figures (2017)Peacock has Paul and Are We There Yet?

Max also has Tommy Boy and Dumb and Dumber.

Pluto also has IAMMMMW.

Paramount+ has Thelma & Louise and Rat Race.

Prime Video has Dog included with subscription.

To add some pure speculation to this, Planes, Trains and Automobiles takes place at Thanksgiving and is considered by many to be a holiday tradition, so there's a strong possibility it could show up on one or more services before the deadline.

One movie down

Off to a rough start

Aww, no Paper Moon?

First one I (re)watched was rough as well. Second was new to me and a significant improvement.

I'm not watching them in order so no spoilers.

Johnbobb posted...

One movie down

Off to a rough start

Found your #29, eh?

Number of movies watched: 2

Number of times people have been hit in the crotch: 3

Im one movie in and Im going to guess itll finish 15th.

I'm three movies in (not counting stuff I've seen in the past) and my guesses are 9, 23, and 28.

plasmabeam posted...

Found your #29, eh?

I'm gonna guess 25

Gonna try to go for it

Weekend bump. Still at 3, planning to watch one tonight.

10/30

6/30

so apparently Pluto doesn't actually have Father Figures, the listing instead went to the 2002 film "Who's Your Daddy?"

time to find a new place to watch

update: finding a new place to watch that one has been a pain, no success yet

looks like Rat Race is no longer on Youtube/Tubi (except with a Paramount+ subscription) but it is on Pluto now

unfortunately I just deleted off the Pluto app after Father Figures wasn't on there any now have to reinstall it

Five movies in now.

Oh no.That movie I thought was going to be 15 is going to finish top 10.

It's crazy to me, and maybe it is something about this genre that I'm not understanding, but I feel like there are multiple movies here in a competition to make their protagonist (or protagonists) as unlikable as possible.

Suprak_the_Stud posted...

It's crazy to me, and maybe it is something about this genre that I'm not understanding, but I feel like there are multiple movies here in a competition to make their protagonist (or protagonists) as unlikable as possible.

I mean there's definitely the trope of unlikely people being stuck together in a ride for an extended period of time, which usually ends up being 1. bland, humorless guy and 2. goofy, annoying guy (or girl) to show how they gradually become closer and learn from each other over time (usually guy #1 learning to not be so serious). It's a pretty lazy trope at this point.

edit: that being said, some of these are just "guy who sucks driving a car" and I'm not sure if that's worse or not

13/30

15/30

9/30

Currently hoping 5 of those finish in the bottom 10.

10/30. This is the best pacing I've ever had for one of these and it helps most of these are pretty breezy.

I will say there have now been three separate times I've watched something and thought "wow ok found my number 30" only for it to be topped by something else right after. I think I really did find it though now, for real. I'm sure this won't jinx me again.

16/30

17/30

20 movies down

Was A Goofy Movie done for one of the animated film lists? I feel like that could've been a fun one to include but with how many animated movie lists we've done here it has to have been done already.

Yes, it was done with the animated TV show films. I had it on my long list for this but it was a pretty early cut for those reasons.

Gotcha. Yeah thats what I figured and I totally understand not wanting to double up.

Out of curiosity where did it rank? Thats always been a favorite of mine and it would be number 1 so far out of the movies Ive seen on this list.

(Also 13/30 now)

Suprak_the_Stud posted...

Out of curiosity where did it rank? Thats always been a favorite of mine and it would be number 1 so far out of the movies Ive seen on this list.

It placed second.

Wow, nice!

Good job ranking crew, you got that one right.

Yeah I think South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut beat it, and I wanna say the bronze went to The Simpsons Movie?

That would be correct, with Powerpuff Girls and My Little Pony 2017 rounding out the top 5