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Five Easy Pieces

  • 1970
  • R
  • 1h 38m
IMDb RATING
7.4/10
43K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
4,219
52
Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces (1970)
Home Video Trailer from Columbia Tristar
Play trailer2:38
2 Videos
99+ Photos
Road TripDrama

A dropout from upper-class America picks up work along the way on oil rigs when his life isn't spent in a squalid succession of bars, motels, and other points of interest.A dropout from upper-class America picks up work along the way on oil rigs when his life isn't spent in a squalid succession of bars, motels, and other points of interest.A dropout from upper-class America picks up work along the way on oil rigs when his life isn't spent in a squalid succession of bars, motels, and other points of interest.

  • Director
    • Bob Rafelson
  • Writers
    • Carole Eastman
    • Bob Rafelson
  • Stars
    • Jack Nicholson
    • Karen Black
    • Billy Green Bush
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    7.4/10
    43K
    YOUR RATING
    POPULARITY
    4,219
    52
    • Director
      • Bob Rafelson
    • Writers
      • Carole Eastman
      • Bob Rafelson
    • Stars
      • Jack Nicholson
      • Karen Black
      • Billy Green Bush
    • 269User reviews
    • 85Critic reviews
    • 85Metascore
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Nominated for 4 Oscars
      • 11 wins & 23 nominations total

    Videos2

    Five Easy Pieces
    Trailer 2:38
    Five Easy Pieces
    Five Easy Pieces: I Can't See The Pins
    Clip 1:52
    Five Easy Pieces: I Can't See The Pins
    Five Easy Pieces: I Can't See The Pins
    Clip 1:52
    Five Easy Pieces: I Can't See The Pins

    Photos278

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    + 271
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    Top cast19

    Edit
    Jack Nicholson
    Jack Nicholson
    • Robert Eroica Dupea
    Karen Black
    Karen Black
    • Rayette Dipesto
    Billy Green Bush
    Billy Green Bush
    • Elton
    • (as Billy 'Green' Bush)
    Fannie Flagg
    Fannie Flagg
    • Stoney
    Sally Struthers
    Sally Struthers
    • Betty
    • (as Sally Ann Struthers)
    Marlena MacGuire
    • Twinky
    • (as Marlena Macguire)
    Richard Stahl
    Richard Stahl
    • Recording Engineer
    Lois Smith
    Lois Smith
    • Partita Dupea
    Helena Kallianiotes
    Helena Kallianiotes
    • Palm Apodaca
    Toni Basil
    Toni Basil
    • Terry Grouse
    Lorna Thayer
    Lorna Thayer
    • Waitress
    Susan Anspach
    Susan Anspach
    • Catherine Van Oost
    Ralph Waite
    Ralph Waite
    • Carl Fidelio Dupea
    William Challee
    William Challee
    • Nicholas Dupea
    John P. Ryan
    John P. Ryan
    • Spicer
    • (as John Ryan)
    Irene Dailey
    Irene Dailey
    • Samia Glavia
    Garrett Cassell
    • Junkie
    • (uncredited)
    Clay Greenbush
    Clay Greenbush
    • Baby
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • Bob Rafelson
    • Writers
      • Carole Eastman
      • Bob Rafelson
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews269

    7.443.2K
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    Featured reviews

    9ricaltman

    They missed the point.

    Had fun reading about 30 of the negative reviews. It's nice that people who live in such a perfect world that they don't believe the character flaws examined in this movie exist. Many of us have gone through much of what Bobby Dupea has. Self doubt, poor choices and being born into a family whose lifestyle we reject which results in us not being as good of a person as we would have liked. Bobby knows he is toxic but is unable or unwilling to change. Nicholson's acting is near perfect but occasionally off (think Chinatown for perfect) making it his arguably his second best. Bobby is largely a disgusting prick, but you occasionally have misplaced hope and empathy for him. The movie sticks with me and resonates 52 years later, I guess because I see some of myself in Bobby Dupree. Bobby's badly damaged character is an indictment of some of us. If movies matter to you, see it. You won't feel warm and fuzzy, but you will get a good look at life that hopefully you don't see from your vantage point.
    hitek-57619

    Can't believe How this film is misinterpreted

    After reading all of the reviews listed here on IMDB, it is incomprehensible to me that not one has grasped the point of the story. This is in spite of the title giving the whole thing away. Come on now guys... The movie is titled Five Easy Pieces because that's all the Jack Nicholson character could play. The pieces are classical, true, and great examples of classics. However, they are evidently not among the most difficult pieces.

    I am astonished that several reviewers wondered why he would give up such a great chance to be a classical musician. Why did he reject his talented and maybe wealthy family to hob nob with those having little or no appreciation of classical music or the life style? (As more than one of the reviewers said.) He left his family home and tried to lose himself because he did simply not have the talent to pursue a career as a concert pianist. He clearly could play well, but this is not the same as having the talent to perform professionally. His sister, Partita, gives us the example of one who does meet those standards, as well as his brother, Carl Fidelio.

    What does one do when he just can't do what is expected no matter how hard he tries? He moves from place to place and from person to person because nothing and no one can help him overcome his failure.
    8jotix100

    The pianist

    "Five Easy Pieces" was one of the most revered films of the 1970s. It was the film that showed audiences what Jack Nicholson could do, after having worked for many years in movies that were seen only by real cinephiles, but not by a wider audiences. Not having seen the film in a long time, we decided to watch it when it showed on cable recently. The only thing is the copy we saw was not anamorphic in format, which on key scenes almost shows a blank screen while the characters talk off camera!

    Bob Rafelson and Carole Eastman created a screen play that dealt with existential themes, a rarity in the American cinema. Mr. Rafelson was at the height of his creative period, something that later projects seem to contradict the promise he showed at the time.

    Bobby Dupea, the main character of the story, is a complex individual who has left a life of privilege and culture behind to become an oil rig worker and getting away from his previous life. At the time we meet him, he is involved with Rayette, a simple woman who loves him, but one can see how different they are. That contrast comes more obvious when Bobby goes back home and meets Catherine, his brother's fiancée, who is a musician and seem to be more attuned with Bobby than the simple minded Rayette.

    "Five Easy Pieces" was a film that showcased the enormously talented Jack Nicholson doing some interesting work. The measure of his acting ability is seen about half way in the movie as Bobby, Rayette, and the two lesbian hitchhikers have stopped at a diner. Bobby's meal order request creates a match of words in which Mr. Nicholson shows what he is capable of doing.

    The film concludes with a puzzling scene, as Bobby and Rayette are heading back home. We watch them stopping at a gas station and little prepares us for what happens next. In a way, we have seen all along the film how restless Bobby has become and it's clear that in spite of his being with Rayette, she will never understands how to make him happy at all.

    The reason for watching "Five Easy Pieces" is Jack Nicholson. His character is the most interesting one in the film and he does an excellent job in creating the tension behind this complex man he portraits. Karen Black's Rayette is annoying at times because of her whining. Susan Anspach comes out better playing Catherine. Some other familiar faces in the cast are, Sally Struthers, Ralph White, Lois Smith, Billy Green Bush and Fannie Flagg.

    "Five Easy Pieces" is one of the best films of that decade.
    10zetes

    Definitely one of the great American films.

    This movie is most famous for a scene in which Jack Nicholson tells a waitress to hold the chicken salad between her knees so he can get some plain wheat toast, but, in a movie as good as this, that very famous scene may be its least memorable one. After that scene, I hadn't heard anything about what this film was really about, and its depth and power took me completely by surprise. It's a story of a man trapped in his own life, unable to find a place to settle. All the locations at which he has arrived have lead to nothing but disappointment and the realization that there just might not be a life for him. God, how I can sympathize. Just as I was starting to question whether Nicholson was as good an actor as everybody seems to think he is, I've come upon his very best performance. Karen Black plays his girlfriend, a hick who loves him to death. He's not sure if she's good enough for him, or vice versa. Lois Smith, Ralph Waite, and Susan Anspach give good supporting performances. A flat-out masterpiece.
    9paul2001sw-1

    A masterpiece

    Previously known only for creating 'The Monkees', Bob Rafelson produced an underrated masterpiece when he made 'Five Easy Pieces', a film that deserves to be a lot better known. Jack Nicholson, typically intense but atypically understated, has possibly his finest hour as Bobby Duprea, a self-hating misogynist ill at ease with himself and the world. Many people will, when thinking of Nicholson, bring to mind his pantomime pyschopath Johnny from 'The Shining'; but Bobby, a profoundly human creation, is actually far more scary. Elsewhere the film features characteristically gorgeous cinematography from Laszlo Kovaks; a soundtrack that skilfully offsets Tammy Wynette and Chopin; excellent writing throughout and some very black humour. Like a less extreme version of Mike Leigh's 'Naked', and bristling with uncomfortable truth, 'Five Easy Pieces' is a true classic of 1970s cinema. Few films today are as good.

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    Related interests

    Sasha Lane in American Honey (2016)
    Road Trip
    Mahershala Ali and Alex R. Hibbert in Moonlight (2016)
    Drama

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      "Five Easy Pieces" refers to a book of piano lessons for beginners.
    • Goofs
      When Bobby plays the piano for Catherine about three quarters through the movie, the music in front of him is clearly not what he is playing (Chopin's "Prelude in E Minor"). On one hand, this emphasizes his improvisational nature and rejection of the life prescribed to him by his class, but it also shows his musical prowess and memory. He reveals that the song was memorized when he later says "I picked the easiest piece I could think of".
    • Quotes

      Bobby: I'd like a plain omelette, no potatoes, tomatoes instead, a cup of coffee and wheat toast.

      Waitress: [points at his menu] No substitutions.

      Bobby: What do you mean? You don't have any tomatoes?

      Waitress: Only what's on the menu. You can have a number two, a plain omelette, it comes with cottage fries and rolls.

      Bobby: Yeah, I know what it comes with, but it's not what I want.

      Waitress: Well, I'll come back when you make up your mind

      Bobby: Wait a minute, I have made up my mind. I'd like a plain omelette, no potatoes on the plate, a cup of coffee and a side order of wheat toast.

      Waitress: I'm sorry, we don't have any side orders of toast. I'll give you an English muffin or a coffee roll.

      Bobby: What do you mean you don't make side orders of toast? You make sandwiches, don't you?

      Waitress: Would you like to talk to the manager?

      Palm Apodaca: Hey, mac...

      Bobby: Shut up.

      [to the waitress]

      Bobby: You've got bread and a toaster of some kind?

      Waitress: I don't make the rules.

      Bobby: OK, I'll make it as easy for you as I can. I'd like an omelette, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast, no mayonnaise, no butter, no lettuce, and a cup of coffee.

      Waitress: A number two, a chicken salad sand. Hold the butter, the lettuce, and the mayonnaise, and a cup of coffee. Anything else?

      Bobby: Yeah, now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, give me a cheque for the chicken salad sandwich, and you haven't broken any rules.

      Waitress: You want me to hold the chicken, huh?

      Bobby: I want you to hold it between your knees.

      [Palm Apodaca sniggers]

      Waitress: [points at a sign behind her] You see that sign, sir? Yes, you'll all have to leave! I'm not taking any more of your smartness and sarcasm!

      Bobby: You see this sign?

      [he sweeps all the glasses off the table onto the floor]

    • Connections
      Edited into Citizen Cohn (1992)
    • Soundtracks
      Stand by Your Man
      Written by Billy Sherrill (as B. Sherril) & Tammy Wynette (as T. Wynette)

      Performed by Tammy Wynette

      [Played over the opening titles]

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • September 12, 1970 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Mi vida es mi vida
    • Filming locations
      • Denny's Restaurant - 3652 Glenwood Drive, Eugene, Oregon, USA(Diner scene)
    • Production companies
      • BBS Productions
      • Columbia Pictures
      • Five Easy Pieces Productions
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • $1,600,000 (estimated)
    • Gross worldwide
      • $141
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 1h 38m(98 min)
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Mono
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.85 : 1

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