Kevin Reynolds · 1985 · road

Kevin Reynolds's 1985 debut, produced by Spielberg and Costner's first lead. Five University of Texas graduates called the Groovers drive west in 1971, two of them holding draft notices, to dig up a magnum of Dom Perignon they buried on the Mexican border - and to put off, for one more weekend, everything waiting for them.

1. 1
   Austin

   A fraternity house on the last night of college in 1971: Gardner throwing darts at a photograph of his ex-girlfriend, Kenneth learning his deferment has expired, and Lester passing out and staying that way for most of the film.

2. 2
   Pecos

   West Texas and the Pecos Parachute School, where Phil is talked into a jump by a hippie instructor who is in no condition to instruct anybody - the sequence Reynolds lifted shot for shot from his own student film.

3. 3
   Marfa

   A Roman candle fight with high-school kids in the cemetery, which stops being funny when the two draftees find the grave of a local boy killed in Vietnam - the film's whole argument in one shot.

4. 4
   The Pinto Canyon road

   Out of gas on Ranch Road 2810 with the Chinati mountains ahead, Phil told he was only ever in the group out of pity - and then the train, and a rope, and somebody asking how they are going to stop.

5. 5
   Dom Rock

   A boulder above the Rio Grande with DOM chiselled into it, where the champagne has been waiting since freshman year - and Gardner digs it up and toasts the abyss: here's to us and what we were.

6. 6
   Tulsa

   He flies north to fetch Debbie back for a wedding he has arranged himself, standing in for the city on screen - an act of friendship from a man who has already decided he is not going to be around much longer.

7. 7
   Austin

   A wedding thrown together in the desert with a borrowed dress and a Confederate Air Force flyover - and then the draftees go, and Gardner walks off down the road alone, which is where the film leaves him.