Their culture was first popularized in the Marlon Brando film The Wild One (1953), which tells a story based very loosely on actual events, the 1947 Hollister riot.
In 1965, director Russ Meyer made Motorpsycho (aka Motor Psycho), an obscure film about an evil motorcycle gang led by a disturbed Vietnam War veteran.
In 1966, American International Pictures (AIP) released The Wild Angels with Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern, and Nancy Sinatra.
AIP dominated the market and quickly released a semi-sequel Devil's Angels starring actor-director John Cassavetes and The Glory Stompers with Dennis Hopper in 1967.
Independent-International Pictures Corp. produced three films in this genre directed by Al Adamson – Satan's Sadists (1969), Hell's Bloody Devils (1970), and Angels' Wild Women (1972).
In 1969, Peter Fonda, Hopper, and Nicholson teamed up on the classic "hippie biker" movie, Easy Rider, the antithesis of the violent biker-gang genre.
As a cost-saving measure, a stunt scene of a motorcycle crashing into a pond was taken from co-producer AIP's comedy The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966).
A number of novelty films were made featuring all-female biker gangs such as The Hellcats aka Biker Babes (1967), She-Devils on Wheels (1968), The Mini-Skirt Mob (from AIP) with Sherry Jackson and Harry Dean Stanton (1968), Sisters in Leather (1969) with Pat Barrington, Angels' Wild Women (1972), Cycle Vixens (1978), and Chrome Angels (2009).
The story (and original Screaming Angels title) was changed after the producers found theaters were no longer interested in traditional biker films.
By the late 1980s, the once shocking and controversial genre became an object of campy humor in horror-comedies such as Chopper Chicks in Zombietown (1989), I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle (1990), and Biker Zombies (2001).
Beyond the Law (1992) is based on a true story and centers on Dan Saxon (Charlie Sheen), an undercover cop who infiltrates a group of criminal outlaw bikers.
2003 film Biker Boyz, starring Laurence Fishburne and Djimon Hounsou, depicts illegal bike racing gangs, although neither are criminals.
Edward Winterhalder is the subject of a feature-length documentary movie about the outlaw biker lifestyle that is being filmed in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Dubai.
After the release of The Wild One (1953), the image of the motorcycle gang, particularly the Marlon Brando character, inspired many imitators and satires in films and television shows.