Director Wim Wenders didn't conceive of the three films as a trilogy, and they were first labelled as one by U.S. critic Richard Roud.

[3] However, U.S. filmmaker Michael Almereyda wrote that "they are unified by shared themes, an exacting formal rigor, and the presence of Rüdiger Vogler".

Almereyda remarked that Wenders' earliest feature films, Summer in the City (1970) and The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty (1972), also involved "aimless journeys", but the Road Movie trilogy was distinct, as "travel not only propels the story but also absorbs and reshapes it".

[2] The trilogy also introduced (in Alice in the Cities) the fictitious wandering character Philip Winter,[5] who returns in three later Wenders films: Until the End of the World, Faraway, So Close!

However, in 2016, The Criterion Collection released the films on DVD and Blu-ray as a box set titled Wim Wenders: The Road Trilogy.