Five Easy Pieces the road life of its hero. We follow him through bars and bowling alleys, motels and mobile homes, and we find him rebelling against lower-middle-class values even as he embraces them. In one magical scene, he leaps from his car in a traffic jam and starts playing the piano on the truck in front of him; the scene sounds forced, described this way, but Rafelson and Nicholson never force anything, and never have to. Robert Eroica Dupea is one of the most unforgettable characters in American movies. He named the film the best of 1970, and later added it to
Five Easy Pieces Touch Me", and "When There's a Fire in Your Heart". According to "Variety", the film earned $1.2 million in North American in 1970. By 1976 the film had earned $8.9 million in North America. The film opened to positive reviews. It holds an 87% "Certified Fresh" rating on online review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 45 reviews, with an average rating of 8.4/10. 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