leave both girlfriend and family and abandon life entirely...a truck driver gives him a ride to a place where ‘it is very cold’: the country of death. Rafelson and his cameraman László Kovács fix the scene in our minds forever: the filling station and its discreet restroom; the grey surrounding buildings; the dripping autumnal vegetation of the Pacific Northwest; the parked truck waiting to go to Alaska; the face of Nicholson, already aging and filled with premonitory shadows, fixed behind the windshield. Religion, love and family have all failed to work, leaving absolutely nothing at the end but a journey to nowhere.”—Biographer Charles Higham in The Art of the American Cinema: 1900-1971.}}The film earned $1.2 million in North America in 1970. By 1976 the film had earned $8.9 million in North America. Critical response The film opened to positive reviews. It holds an 88% "Certified Fresh" rating on online review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 52 reviews, with an average rating of 8.60/10. The critics' consensus states: "An important touchstone of the New Hollywood era, Five Easy Pieces is a haunting portrait of alienation that features one of Jack Nicholson's greatest performances." Roger Ebert gave the film four stars out of four, describing it as “one of the best American films”, one that “becomes a masterpiece of heartbreaking intensity” as it develops its lead character’s arc. Ebert called Bobby Dupea “one of the most unforgettable characters in American movies.“ Ebert named the film the best of 1970, and later added it to his "Great Movies" series. John Simon criticized Five Easy Pieces for its pretentiousness and oversimplification but said if anything saved the film from triviality, it was the performances, especially those of Karen Black, Lois Smith, and Billy Green Bush. In 2022 retrospective review, Polish writer Jacek Szafranowicz called the film "one of the masterpieces of the New Hollywood era", concluding that it is "flawless". Accolades Home media On November 16, 1999, Columbia TriStar Home Video released the film on two-sided DVD-Video, featuring both fullscreen (4:3) and widescreen formats. Grover Crisp of Sony Pictures conducted a 4K restoration of the film, and it was screening theatrically in DCP by 2012. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection in November 2010 as part of the box set America Lost and Found: The BBS Story. It includes audio commentary featuring director Bob Rafelson and interior designer