Five Easy Pieces · reception & legacy
1970 · Bob Rafelson
How Five Easy Pieces has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
No rescue mission needed here — it was a critical sensation on arrival (four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture) and has settled comfortably into the New Hollywood canon, joining the National Film Registry in 2000. If anything it's shifted from zeitgeist landmark to connoisseur's pick, name-checked less than Easy Rider but rated higher by people who've seen both.
What's debated
The eternal debate is the diner scene: is Bobby's chicken-salad-sandwich rebellion a triumphant middle finger to petty rules, or — as fans increasingly point out — just a guy being cruel to a waitress who doesn't make the rules?
Its footprint
"I want you to hold it between your knees" is one of the most quoted lines of 1970s cinema, and the chicken salad sandwich order became shorthand for anti-establishment cool — referenced and parodied for decades, from stand-up bits to sitcoms.
Where it stands
A cornerstone of the New Hollywood syllabus — the Criterion BBS box set jewel and the film cinephiles cite as the moment Jack Nicholson went from character actor to era-defining star.