When you're out on the open road, driving for hours on end, it's important to have something to keep you entertained. While new movies have their appeal, there's something special about going back in time and exploring the classics. In this article, we'll take a look at a collection of old movies that are perfect for truck drivers. Whether you're in the mood for thrilling adventures or heartwarming stories, these films will make your long journeys more enjoyable. So grab a snack, sit back, and join us on a cinematic journey through the ages.
This film would be one of those few notable exceptions we mentioned before. Told from the perspective of long-haul truck drivers, this 2007 documentary, directed by Doug Pray, offers a glimpse into the modern-day trucking industry. Filming took place over four different two-week roadtrips. The documentary’s director and cameraman, producer and production assistant drove into a truck stop in an RV and approached truckers for interviews. If the driver agreed, Pray rode along for a day and interviewed the driver while the producer followed along in the RV. Big Rig was an official selection of the 2007 Seattle International Film Festival and the American Film Institute (AFI) Fest 2007.
Director John Carpenter once described “Big Trouble in Little China” as an “action adventure comedy kung fu ghost story monster movie.” The 1986 feature starring Kurt Russell, Dennis Dun, Kim Cattrall, and James Hong is also a top trucking movie. The story unfolds as Jack Burton, an all-American trucker played by Russell, becomes entangled in a centuries-old mystical battle in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Yes, we know it’s called the International District, now. But let’s face it, “Big Trouble in Little International District” just doesn’t sound right.
While Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson wants to do a remake of the movie with Carpenter directing, Carpenter remains ambivalent to the idea. The Rock playing the role of Jack Burton, a blue-collar everyman truck driver? We’re just not seeing it.
About a year after Smokey and the Bandit premiered, Kris Kristofferson appeared on the big screen as Martin “Rubber Duck” Penwald opposite Ernest Borgnine as Sheriff Lyle “Cottonmouth” Wallace. The movie, directed by Sam Peckinpah, was inspired by country song “Convoy,” by C.W. McCall, originally released three years earlier. Later, a new version of the song was recorded with saltier lyrics for the movie’s soundtrack. While C.W. McCall is listed as the artist and co-writer, that name is actually a pseudonym created by the actual songwriter, Bill Fries, also listed as co-writer. The movie tanked at the box office as a lot of the CB radio hype had died down by the time the movie was released. Still, it remains a cult classic among truckers and trucking enthusiasts.
This comedy, directed by James Fargo, stars Clint Eastwood as Philo Beddoe, a chill trucker with an unusual team member riding along – an orangutan named Clyde, played by Manis. Following the release of the sequel – “Any Which Way You Can,” two years later, debate ensued as to what happened to Manis. The confusion seems to stem from the possibility that Manis did not actually play Clyde in the sequel because he had literally grown too big for the role. The orangutan who played Clyde in the second film was found dead of a cerebral hemorrhage allegedly attributed to abuse shortly after filming ended in 1980. However in an article that appeared in the Los Angeles Times on animal abuse in the entertainment industry 28 years later, the LA Times referred to the orangutan that played Clyde as one and the same animal.
Sweetiepie, the wife of a trucker wounded in a shootout, played by Kim Darby, must think of a way to pay the rates for her husband’s Mack conventional truck before it’s confiscated by repossessor professor C.W. Douglas, played by Harry Dean Stanton. With the help of a friend of her husband, Flatbed Annie, who’s a truck driver without a truck, they take to the road looking to “outdrive, outhaul, outdrag, outclutch, outtalk, outhog any turkey on the boulevard.” Annie Potts plays Flatbed Annie in this 1979 comedy directed by Robert Greenwald. Kind of like a “High Ballin’” meets “Thelma and Louise,” type chick truck flick, only without the driving-off-the-cliff part.