Easy Rider [VHS]

Two cool guys head out on motorcycles in search of... well, America, but they'll settle for sex and drugs and rock & roll. There's plenty of each as Captain America (Peter Fonda) and paranoid Billy (Dennis Hopper) encounter a commune, convert a small-town drunk (Jack Nicholson) to the Grin Reefer, pick up two pretty lilies of the alley, Karen Black and Toni Basil (who hit the pop charts in the '80s--check out "Mickey"), and get shot for having long hair. Nicholson won an Oscar nomination and Best Supporting Actor nods from the National Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Circle, but his acting was better than they knew: he had to pretend to be straight and gradually get plastered in many, many takes using real weed. Find out the far wilder, funnier story behind the film in the book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls and Peter Fonda's Don't Tell Dad. --Tim Appelo