Throughout the decades, the pop-cultural image of outlaw bikers has gone through several phases/subgenres, each associated with a particular narrative about them:
- "Bikers are causeless rebels": This was the original conception of the biker presented in The Wild One (1953), whose Johnny Strabler deliberately antagonizes the society that is basically alright and has no quarrel with him, initially. The next two narratives evolved this idea in different directions.
- "Bikers are a bestial invading horde": Popularized by the bikerploitation movies from The Wild Angels (1966) onward, this narrative zoomed in on the antisocial, destructive, and violent aspects of biker lifestyle, essentially portraying them as Always Chaotic Evil.
- "Bikers are misunderstood freedom seekers": Easy Rider (1969) sublimated the ideas of The '60s' counterculture into a new narrative of bikers as sympathetic sentimental outcasts. While few movies have followed said narrative to the letter (the latest being Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man in 1991), it remains an important counterpoint to the mostly negative biker portrayals in the media.
- "Bikers are post-apocalyptic raiders": Since The '70s, thanks to both Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Mad Max (1979), marauding biker packs have become an inextricable staple in post-apocalyptic and dystopian fiction as overarching or final antagonists.note
- "Bikers are generic tough guys": The shift of the "evil biker" image from "an unstoppable force of nature" to this in The '90s is perhaps best illustrated by T-800 beating up a bunch of bikers and seizing a hog at the start of Terminator 2 (1991).
- "Bikers are a power fantasy": A product of the early '90s' revisionism, Full Throttle (1995) blended a sympathetic portrayal of bikers with their tough guy image to let players experience the fantasy of being a Badass Biker. This narrative is, for obvious reasons, mostly found in interactive media.
- "Bikers are ruthless criminal enterprises": After the Quebec Biker War
(1994–2002)note , the "bestial horde" narrative was largely displaced as the default biker image by their portrayals as organized drug-pushers and/or gun-runners, best exemplified by Sons of Anarchy (2008–14)note .
Other common tropes in biker media include: All Bikers are Hells Angels, Badass Biker, Cool Bike, Bad Guy Bar, Motorcycle Dominoes, and Bōsōzoku (in Japanese media). Usually absent: Motorcycle Safety. For more information on the history of the genre, see also our notes on Biker Media and The Other Wiki's article on Outlaw biker film.
Any media which depicts outlaw motorcycle clubs as criminal groups also doubles as Gangster Fiction, though anything starring non-criminal bikers obviously wouldn't fit in there.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- AKIRA (1982), as well as its 1988 animated movie adaptation, are rarely considered as an example of biker media, but the story does focus on two Japanese biker gang members, Kaneda and Tetsuo, and is largely responsible for the proliferation of the Cool Bike trope in the Cyberpunk genre, as well as for popularizing (via Kaneda) heroic bikers to dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction.
- Shonan Jun'ai Gumi! (1990-1996), its prequel Bad Company (1996), and its sequel Great Teacher Onizuka (1997-2002) focus on Bōsōzoku bikers Eikichi Onizuka and Ryuji Danma (Ryuji is Demoted to Extra in GTO).
- Bad Company especially focuses on Bōsōzoku culture, being an Origins Episode about how the duo got their bikes in the first place.
- In Great Teacher Onizuka, Eikichi is no longer an active gang member, but he still rides a custom motorcycle and is well-known in the biker gang community.
- Tokyo Revengers revolves around the Tokyo Manji gang, a Bōsōzoku gang of Japanese Delinquents that started out relatively innocuous aside from street fights, but evolved into a major crime syndicate in the present day.
Comic Books
- Barb Wire is a Hell-Bent for Leather Bounty Hunter always seen on her bike.
- Ghost Rider: A stunt biker with a flaming skull for a head fights crime as part of a Deal with the Devil.
- Gotham City Garage is a comic Elseworld based on a statue line, in which mostly-female DC Comics heroes are Apunkalyptic biker outlaws fighting the totalitarian reign of Lex Luthor.
- The Humans follows the exploits of the namesake club, who all happen to be great apes. Its set in an alternate Earth where apes are the dominant species and humans are used as livestock. The settings' history follows our own pretty closely, so much so that the Vietnam War happened and the main character is a recently returned veteran. Essentially The Humans is Sons of Anarchy meets Planet of the Apes.
- Joe Bar Team concerns the lives and times of a group of Parisians bikers who hang out at the eponymous Joe Bar.
- Roadqueen: Eternal Roadtrip to Love
- Sherwood, Texas (2014) is a retelling of the Robin Hood mythos, pitting the protagonist against a violent outlaw biker gang, The Nobles, in a modern setting.
Film — Live-Action
- 1% (2018) an Australian biker gang drama showing clear influence by Sons of Anarchy.
- Barb Wire (1996), an In Name Only adaptation of the comic book.
- Beyond the Law (1992) also sees an undercover cop infiltrating a biker gang and soon finding himself Becoming the Mask.
- The Bikeriders (2024) follows the rise of the Vandals MC, a fictional Chicago outlaw biker club in The '60s.
- The Black Six (1973), a blaxploitation biker film.
- Dear God No! (2011), a gang of outlaw bikers pull a home invasion on a disgraced anthropologist hiding a secret locked in his cabin basement.
- Disturbing the Peace (2020), a police officer must fight back against a violent outlaw motorcycle club that takes over his small town.
- Easy Rider (1969) was likely the first sympathetic depiction of bikers as sentimental outcasts, a deliberate subversion of the violent biker archetype of the time.
- Gimme Shelter (1970), a Rockumentary of the 1969 Altamont concert by The Rolling Stones, in which the actual Hells Angels were hired as "security" for musicians on the stage.
- In Goldstone (2016), the Furnace Creek Mining Group employs an outlaw motorcycle gang called the Howlers as enforcers; using them to deal with troublemakers while maintaining plausible deniability.
- Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991) portrays the eponymous bikers as Lovable Rogues despite their criminal lifestyle.
- The Hellcats (1967), a bikerploitation film.
- Hell Ride (2008) is an homage to the old bikerploitation movies of the '60s.
- Hell's Angels '69 (1969) was the second and, to date, last biker movie produced in association with the real Hells Angels.
- Hells Angels on Wheels (1967), notable for being one of the few biker films produced in collaboration with actual bikers of the Hells Angels MC.
- Hell's Bloody Devils (1970), a bikerploitation film where a spy battles a neo-Nazi biker gang.
- Killers on Wheels (1974), an Exploitation Film where a family of vacationers are terrorized by a bloodthirsty biker gang.
- Lone Hero (2002), where an actor in a Wild West show must become a mythical Western Hero when a biker gang descends upon a small Montana town.
- The Losers (1970), where a biker gang are hired to rescue POW's in Vietnam. Features machine guns mounted to motorcycles.
- The Lost Boys (1987) is about two brothers encountering a biker gang who happen to be vampires.
- In Made (2001), Puffy Daddy's character is a drug kingpin in New York who has a gang of black bikers under his command.
- Mad Max (1979) features a biker gang as the primary villains, but rather than being a straight up exploitation of the biker image, it had established outlaw biker gangs as an obligatory feature of dystopian and post-apocalyptic settings.
- Masters Of Menace (1990) is a rare biker comedy, presenting the outlaws as fun-loving, hard-drinking, but mostly harmless vagabonds.
- Nam Angels (1989), the other movie where a biker gang are hired to rescue POW's in Vietnam. Features machine guns mounted to motorcycles.
- Quick (2011) is about a famous ex-outlaw biker who has to deliver a bomb before it explodes.
- The Sidehackers (1969), a bikerploitation film.
- Stone (1974), an Australian flick about a cop who infiltrates a biker gang.
- Stone Cold (1991) has a cop go undercover in a criminal biker gang.
- Stray Cat Rock: Delinquent Girl Boss (1970), a Japanese bikersploitation film about an all-female biker gang.
- Streets of Fire (1984) is another movie with an outlaw MC as the main antagonists.
- Torque (2004) portrays a lone motorcyclist in conflict with several (drug-running) outlaw MCs at once.
- Werewolves on Wheels (1971), a film about bikers turned into werewolves by a Satanic cult.
- The Wild Angels (1966) is one of the first and best-known bikerploitation films of the '60s.
- Wild Hogs (2007) sees four regular middle-aged shmoes go on rides with outlaw biker attires — only to run afoul of actual outlaw bikers (and obvious stand-ins for the Hells Angels).
- The Wild One (1953) is, by most accounts, the first biker film, which established the outlaw biker image in popular subconsciousness.
- Wild Rebels (1967), a bikerploitation film.
Literature
- Veteran Hells Angel Sonny Barger wrote a number of novels on the outlaw lifestyle well into his senior years, as well as his memoirs and non-fiction books about motorcycling in general.
- Edward Winterhalder, the retired founder of Oklahoma chapter of the Banditos, is another prominent non-fiction writer and popularizer of the outlaw biker lifestyle.
Live-Action TV
- Bikie Wars: Brothers in Arms (2012) is an Australian mini-series dramatizing the events of the Milperra massacre of 1984.
- Gangland Undercover (2015–ongoing) is based on the memoirs of Charles Falco, an undercover informant who infiltrated several outlaw biker gangs in service of the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
- The Last Chapter (2002) is a Canadian six-episode mini-series about the fictional Triple Sixers MC, loosely Based on a True Story of the Quebec Biker War (1994–2002).
- Renegade (1992-1997), a framed-up ex-cop who becomes a Bounty Hunter, riding a chopper and adopting a biker aesthetic.
- Sons of Anarchy (2008–14) tells the story of the eponymous (fictional) gun-running outlaw MC.
- Mayans M.C. (2018–ongoing) is a spinoff series that focuses on the Sons' eponymous "frenemies".
Tabletop Games
- 1%er - The Outlaw Motorcycle Game (2013) is a Tabletop RPG where the players take on the roles of bikers belonging to the "nomad" chapter of an outlaw MC, meaning that they don't have a permanent base but ride around doing odd jobs (mostly of the criminal kind) for the club.
Video Games
- The Russian developer/publisher Akella had been working on a biker-themed Action Game Axle Rage (later rebranded as Rage Rider) from 2002 to right up until its closure in 2012. The game took a lot of its inspiration from Full Throttle, and would have been a Wide-Open Sandbox set in a post-apocalyptic City of Adventure that is carved up among several biker gangs, with the player belonging to one of them.
- Days Gone (2019): Main characters Deacon and Boozer are all that remains of their outlaw motorcycle club from before the Zombie Apocalypse. In fact, the game had been originally pitched as "The Walking Dead meets Sons of Anarchy".
- Full Throttle (1995) follows the leader of an outlaw biker club trying to save his crew from fabricated murder accusations. Two sequels, Full Throttle: Payback and Full Throttle: Hell on Wheels had been in production at LucasArts, but fell to Creative Differences in 2000 and 2003, respectively.
- Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned (2009) puts the focus on the Lost MC, who have previously appeared as side characters in Grand Theft Auto IV and The Ballad of Gay Tony.
- Harley-Davidson: Race Across America (1999) is a more or less bare-bones Advertisement Game for Harley-Davidson where players race their way to the annual Sturgis Bike Rally.
- Ride to Hell: Retribution (2013): The motorcycling protagonist is not a member of an outlaw MC, but his primary antagonists, the Devil's Hand gang, are.
- Road Rash (1991) made waves when it came out for not just being a motorcycle racing game, but one where you could attack the other competitors with punches, kicks and weapons while avoiding the cops. Later installments play up the "rebel biker" angle more, coming to a head in 2000's Road Rash: Jailbreak
- Road Redemption (2017) is set in a post-nuclear apocalypse America run by biker gangs and the sole remaining MegaCorp. The protagonist is an independent biker who fights his way through multiple gangs' turf for a bounty put by said MegaCorp on a mysterious motorcycling assassin.
Western Animation
- Avenger Penguins (1993–94) casts anthropomorphic animals (penguins, in this case) as a kid-friendly biker club.
- Biker Mice from Mars (1993–96) was a kid-friendly take on the genre, featuring a trio of anthropomorphic alien mice as the remnant of a Martian outlaw biker club.
