Unsure whether your summer romance will outlast your road trip? Try watching a few of these movies before you get in the car, and perhaps, you'll be inspired to begin driving.
Almost Famous
A not-so-classic take on the typical road trip film, Almost Famous adapts the true-life experiences of a teen Rolling Stone journalist who travels across America along with a band and their groupies (or, as they prefer to be called, Band-Aides.) William Miller, played by Patrick Fugit, is an aspiring journalist for the magazine "Cream".
Though his adventures with the band Stillwater open his eyes to the intermittently decadent and depressing lifestyle of musicians in the 1970s, it is not William but rather Stillwater's lead vocalist Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup) who ultimately wins the girl. Kate Hudson plays seductively soft-voiced Penny Lane, a Band-Aide who follows Russell with fervent devotion, while trailed herself by the endlessly devoted, and eventually heartbroken, William.
Thelma and Louise
This classic film of female bonding and a small-town escape, "Thelma and Louise" reveals more about the relationship between two friends than the men that enter (and leave) their lives. Thelma (Geena Davis) sheds her melancholy life and her angry husband Darryl when she joins her slightly more free-spirited companion Louise (Susan Sarandon) on an ill-fated trip that ends at the Grand Canyon.
Meeting an adorably charming hitch-hiker along the way (played by a young Brad Pitt at his most painfully attractive), Thelma and Louise prove that their friendship surpasses the importance of any man (be it a hitchhiker, husband or police officer.)
Road Trip
Although the most juvenile film on the list, Road Trip's campy, college-boys-go-cross-country plot somehow manages to conclude with the most successful relationship of all three films in this list. Four boys drive across country, stealing a school bus along the way, in an attempt to salvage the relationship of Josh Parker (played by Breckin Meyer).
Although Sean William Scott's role (basically as Stifler part 2) shines in his bizarrely disgusting way as always, Josh's eventual courtship of Beth Wagner (Amy Smart) ultimately prevails as the romance of the film.
