“Why are we watching this chick flick?” my 21-year-old nephew asked. He’s been Swiping Tinder profiles and playing motocross on his phone, watching out of the corner of his eye, wondering why his super cool uncle was watching two women talk about their no-good, rotten men at 1 in the afternoon. “What is this, Lifetime network?”

But then his eyes started to linger a little longer on the screen. Soon after, the questions came: Where are they? (A: Monument Valley, Utah). Why are they on the run? (One shot a would-be rapist and they fled). What are they driving? (A bad-ass ’66 Ford Thunderbird convertible).

I can’t say for sure, but I may have caught a tear in his eye when Thelma and Louise clasped hands and drove off the rim of the Grand Canyon. Although, I’m pretty sure he was mourning the ’66 Ford Thunderbird. He’s an engine guy. Aren’t we all? When two custom choppers fire up and the first chords of Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild” rip through the speakers, we all want to get our motors running.

Summertime is when we all think of hitting the road.

The road trip movie is many things to many people — an escape, a buddy flick, the modern western (Dennis Hopper even named his heroes in “Easy Rider” after gunslingers, Billy and Wyatt. Their modified choppers were their trusted steeds in a blacktop world). The best road pictures put us in the passenger seat and pull us along for the ride, wherever it’s taking us. And we’re in! Like the best road trips we’ve ever taken, the destination isn’t really the point.The action is the juice. We’ll find out along with everyone else.

A product of the ’70s, an independent movie usually meant some badasses in muscle cars laid rubber, raised hell, trashed towns and chasing the jiggling girl in booty shorts. Peckinpah. Hellman. Cimino. Ashby. The human experience was whipping by at 80 miles per hour.

But what makes a great road trip movie? It’s about human nature, the human experience, there’s fun along with the adventure, there’s danger. You’d like to ride along with them, at least for awhile (sorry “Natural Born Killers”), and the movie puts you there, riding shotgun. You also need roads (sorry “Searchers” and almost every western). It’s living life in the fast lane, as fast as today will go, so no fantasy times (“Mad Max”). The ride itself is a character, something on wheels that rolls methodically, giving our characters time to evolve (sorry “Into the Wild, Wild, Almost Famous, Wizard of Oz).

Lastly, it’s a trip, a journey toward somewhere specific, but tends to go anywhere else. (No “Duel”, “Hitcher”)

There are six core elements of a great road trip movie. The Flannel Jack completely unscientific ranking used 6 categories, on a scale of 1 to 8 pistons, with a perfect score being 48. The categories:

• The Trippers — Unique characters. Are memorable small characters picked up along the way? The people along the way are the ones who truly make a great road journey. Bonus points if a smaller character is a budding star. (Think Nicholson in “Easy Rider”, Pitt in “Thelma & Louise and Wilder in “Bonny & Clyde”). Unlikely characters thrown together by circumstance.
• The Ride — It’s an essential character all to itself, a ready player in the unfolding adventure. Be it two wheels or four (or more).
• The Road —  The setting is new to the characters and we see it through our heroes eyes; Going to new/unseen unfamiliar territory (sorry “Blues Brothers”), the protagonists are outside their comfort zone; they’ve traveled far from home. The story is about the journey anyway, not the destination. Openness to wander off course for new adventure and new sites; the new setting affects the story; Outer journey reflects inner journey; learn along the way/road; Self-discovery; Traveling physically & mentally. The best road trip movies are journeys of self discovery.
• The Danger —  Every road trip has to feel like it might go off the rails. At any time. There could be something lurking around every unknown corner.
• The Freedom — Like any truly awesome road trip, the film’s characters are leaving something behind in the rear view mirror. With the wind in their hair, there is liberation, a newfound sense of freedom, even joy (if only for a fleeting moment). Being on the road has freed them; opened their eyes. As Thelma says: “Something’s, like, crossed over in me and I can’t go back.”
• The Jams — A rocking soundtrack sets the tone, the scene and speaks to the characters’ thoughts (and eventually reaches your Spotify list.)

Based on that criteria, this is where the rubber hits the road.

The first official Flannel Jack Top-10 Road Trip Movies of all time. It’s the fastest festival on film!

1. Thelma & Louise  Crosses off every box on the checklist. The 1966 Ford Thunderbird convertible across a desert landscape. A young Brad Pitt stealing their money. The pursuit. Flying full throttle into the Grand Canyon? That’s like dunking after the game’s already been decided.
2. Easy Rider The best opening credits sequence in movie history (Yes, I see you “Star Wars”). When the opening riffs of “Born to be Wild” are coupled with Billy and Wyatt cruising on their choppers, you feel the wind in your face. Add a young Jack Nicholson in a supporting role and we’re all looking for America, but not finding it anywhere.
3. Vacation The gold standard for a comedic road trip. The Wagon Queen Family Truckster. The journey with Cousin Eddie, Christie Brinkley in a convertible and John Candy waiting at Wally World. Truly, the destination wasn’t the gold at end of rainbow.
4. Stand by Me A road trip on bicycles. To see a dead body. The nostalgic soundtrack of youth. Kiefer Sutherland looking pretty damn vampirish even before “The Lost Boys.” Danger around every corner, especially being narrated by a sad Richard Dreyfuss, you know the waterworks are coming.
5. Rain Man  The unlikely pairing of two brothers, so different they don’t know they’re brothers. The ’49 Buick Roadmaster sets the whole story in motion. Who doesn’t want to wear matching shiny suits on a Vegas casino escalator?
6. Planes, Trains and Automobiles  Sometimes, multiple means of transportation work when they’re all pointed, more or less, toward the destination. Doing the “Mess Around” with a stranger you already hate is road comedy gold.
7. Sideways Our characters unravel in the midst of their freedom, and see what they’re leaving behind. The road to Sonoma and the aptly named Hitching Post are a tourist journey thriving more than two decades later.
8. Vanishing Point — Twenty years before the girls held hands and flew into the Grand Canyon, Kowalski left the world on his own terms, racing 100 miles per hour into a bulldozer roadblock … smiling. A disaffected ex-cop and race car driver has to deliver a 1970 Dodge Challenger 440 Magnum cross-country to California while high on speed, being chased by police, and meeting all kinds of characters along the way. Yes, please.
9. Bonnie & Clyde — Running for state lines in their 1934 Ford. A young Gene Hackman. An even younger Gene Wilder. The original anti-heroes found freedom and happiness by leaving everything they knew in the rearview mirror.
10. Dumb & Dumber — “A little place called Aspen. Someplace warm … where the beer flows like wine.” Whether it takes the Mutt’s Cuts van, the miniature moped, a Ferrari bought with IOUs or a Hawaiian Tropics tour bus full of models, Harry and Lloyd were going places.