The Bikeriders is a 2023 American crime drama film written and directed by Jeff Nichols, and starring Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, Michael Shannon, Mike Faist, Boyd Holbrook, Damon Herriman, Beau Knapp, Emory Cohen, Karl Glusman, Toby Wallace, and Norman Reedus. Its plot, inspired by the photo book of the same title by Danny Lyon, depicts the lives of the Vandals Motorcycle Club, a fictional version of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club.
The Bikeriders premiered at the 50th Telluride Film Festival on August 31, 2023, and was released in the United States on June 21, 2024. Originally scheduled to be released theatrically in the United States on December 1, 2023, by 20th Century Studios, the release was delayed due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Ultimately, Focus Features acquired the film rights from producer New Regency. The film received a positive reception and grossed $36 million worldwide.
In 1965, Kathy Bauer meets Benny Cross, a hotheaded member of the Chicago-based Vandals Motorcycle Club, and marries him just five weeks later. Photography student Danny Lyon travels with and interviews the Vandals. He learns from Kathy that the founder, Johnny Davis, was inspired to create the club after watching Marlon Brando in The Wild One.
Johnny’s leadership is challenged when he rebuffs a Vandal’s suggestion that new chapters be allowed to form. They engage in a fistfight which Johnny wins. He reestablishes his authority but grants permission to expand the club anyway. New chapters begin to form across the Midwest.
In 1969, Benny is attacked by two men in a bar for wearing his colors. His foot is nearly severed by a shovel during the altercation. Johnny forces the owner to provide the names of the men and orders his men to burn down the bar. While Benny is recovering from surgery, Johnny pressures him to come to a motorcycle rally before he is fully healed, to Kathy’s objection. Johnny offers Benny leadership of the club when he eventually steps down, but Benny rejects it.
A 20-year-old delinquent known as “the Kid” asks Johnny to allow him and his motorcycle club to join the Vandals. Johnny initially dismisses them but decides to test the Kid by allowing only him to join. When he expresses his willingness to abandon his friends, Johnny rejects him. The Kid attacks Johnny with a knife, but Johnny beats him and warns him not to come back.
In 1975, Lyon interviews Kathy about the fate of the Vandals. She explains that Johnny became despondent after the death of his lieutenant Brucie in a vehicular accident, and the club grew increasingly violent after drug-addicted Vietnam War veterans joined the ranks.
At a party, longtime member Cockroach is beaten by new members when he drunkenly expresses a desire to leave the club to become a motorcycle cop. Kathy is nearly gang-raped while Benny is busy; she is narrowly rescued by Johnny. Furious, Kathy demands Benny quit the Vandals. Instead, he leaves her for several days.
Cockroach, scared for his life, asks Johnny to help him. To allow Cockroach to safely leave the club, Johnny and Benny stage a break-in, where they shoot him non-fatally in the leg. Disturbed by the increasing violence of the club and again rejecting Johnny’s offer of leadership, Benny quits and leaves Chicago for parts unknown.
The Kid, now a member of the Vandals Milwaukee chapter, challenges Johnny to a knife fight for leadership of the Vandals. In a parking lot, Johnny confronts the Kid who pulls a handgun and kills him. Kathy relays to Lyon that after the Kid took over the Vandals, they became a large criminal gang involved in drug trafficking and murder. The original members either fell in line, left to obtain legitimate jobs, or died.
Benny returns home after learning of Johnny’s death and Kathy comforts him. He and Kathy relocate to Florida, where Benny works as a mechanic and has stopped riding motorcycles. Kathy tells Lyon that they are happy, and Benny doesn’t miss the biker lifestyle. She looks out the window at Benny, who smiles as the sounds of motorcycles are heard.
The Bikeriders is named after Danny Lyon’s photo book of the same title, which filmmaker Jeff Nichols read for the first time in 2003.
The story’s Vandals MC is inspired by the book’s detailing of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club. Lyon is portrayed in the film by Mike Faist.
Since 2004, Nichols had mentioned the project to Michael Shannon, who has starred in all his films, on the set of each collaboration; while making the short film Long Way Back Home in 2018, Shannon quipped that he had “been talking about that damn idea for so long.”
By 2022, Nichols wrote the screenplay from his original story idea. New Regency agreed to produce the film in May 2022.
The project was officially announced with Nichols attached as director in August 2022, with Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, and Tom Hardy on board to star.
