Motorcycles and movies have always gone together like Peanut Butter and Jelly. Whenever a screenwriter wants to amp up the coolness of their film, or whenever they need to quickly define how badass a character is, they can simply plug in a motorcycle.

Throughout the history of film and television, motorcycles have had an important role. Sometimes they’re used perfectly and sometimes they’re used horribly. Sometimes the bike itself can nearly become a character in the film. Good, Bad and Ugly, here’s a list of some of the best motorcycle moments in film and television.

CHiP’s

I still get the chills when I hear this music. It reminds me of growing up in the late 70′s. Cops had their place on television for years, but until CHiP’s they had always seemed square. The tales of the California Highway Patrol showed that Motorcycles + Cops + Southern California = instant cool!  The only thing that could out-cool Ponch’ and Baker on their Kawasaki 1000′s, was the inevitable chance to hook up with feather haired babes at a Roller Rink or Disco that came in the last 10 minutes of EVERY episode!

STREETHAWK

“Man, machine… StreetHawk!”  In the 80′s, television drama was all about vehicular action. From the A-Team’s trademark van to Michael Knight’s Kit and even Airwolf’s helicopter… it seemed there was no shortage of fast paced action dramas. Cashing in on this theme, producers offered us “Streethawk.” What better way to fight organized crime than slap a masked police detective on a 1983 Hnoda HL500? While shortlived, this series was memorable for its use of ridiculous stunt work and side mounted machine guns.  Still never got how he aimed them.

EASY RIDER

The film that introduced America to motorcycle counter-culture and Steppenwolf. Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper made  traveling the backroads of the South West on Harley Davidson Hydraglide’s the dream of American men everywhere.  This is the seminal film for the feeling of the open road that one can only get on a motorcycle.

THE GREAT ESCAPE

Take a 1961 Triumph TR6 Trophy, add a dash of Steve McQueen, throw in a WWI prison camp escape and cap it all off with an nice little jump and you have perhaps the single most identifiable motorcycle scene in film history. The very definition of ‘coolness.’

RAISING ARIZONA

The Coen Brothers are masters of film. While they are often noted for their humor (“The Big Lebowski”) it is their use of tension that is really their art. Long before Javier Bardem scared people witless in “No Country For Old Men,” The Coen’s first delivered evil personified a’la Randal Cobb in the film “Raising Arizona.” The devil himself is hired to retrieve the child that Nicholas Cage kidnapped.  And how do you introduce “The Lone Biker of the Apocalypse” to the viewer?  On a bike, that’s how!

AKIRA

Katsuhiro Ôtomo’s animated masterpiece uses the backdrop of Neo-Tokyo to introduce a post apocalyptic world of futuristic bike gangs. There are other post-apocalyptic films prominently featuring motorcycles (“the “Mad Max” series) that could have been included in this list, but Akira uses animation to introduce us to a world of physics that stretch the imagination to limits of what the future of motorcycles may hold.  The bike from the film resonates so much that a quick Google Image search shows you how making custom replicas has become quite popular.

THE MATRIX RELOADED

Let’s be honest here, the 2nd and 3rd Matrix films basically sucked. If there is one redeeming value of the two sequels, though, it would have the be the climatic ‘Freeway’ sequence. Needing to fashion an escape, Trinity hops on the back of a Ducati 996 and takes off. What follows is some of the most aggressive and cinematic motorcycle stunt work in the history of film. The filmmakers accurately captured the feel and essence of going 140 mph on a bike.

TRON

Much like the earlier submission, “Akira”, “Tron” managed to take the feel of a motorcycle and apply it an otherworldly action set piece. In this instance, Jeff Bridges has become stuck inside of the programming of a Video Game. Groundbreaking for it’s time, “Tron” featured a number of computer generated contests. Without a doubt the most memorable of which was the ‘LighCycle’ sequence. Nearly 20 years later, the scene still holds up as an incredible futuristic motorcycle chase. A sequel is planned for next year and producers introduced it at ComicCon this year by offering fans an opportunity to see one of the new LightCycles up close and personal.

CAPTAIN AMERICA

And now the ugly. As we said earlier, you can throw a motorcycle into a movie or tv show and hope for instant coolness. But if you don’t do it right, then you can pretty much sabotage your show. Take this instance of the made for television “Captain America” movie. Normally you’d think that if you take America’s hero and throw him on a motorcycle you could just sit back and enjoy the awesomeness. Well this video proves that wrong. Instead you can sit back and watch what would appear to be a training video for how to look like a total tool on a bike (costume included).