The Brown Bunny is a 2003 independent erotic romantic road drama film written, directed, produced, photographed, and edited by Vincent Gallo.

Starring Gallo and Chloë Sevigny, it tells the story of a motorcycle racer on a cross-country drive who is haunted by memories of his former lover.

It was photographed with handheld 16 mm cameras in various locations throughout the United States, including New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Ohio, Missouri, Utah, Nevada, and California.

[4] The film received mixed and heavily polarized reviews from critics, and was nominated for several accolades, including the Palme d'Or.

He leaves a note on the door frame, after sitting in his truck in the driveway remembering about kissing Daisy in this place and checks in at a hotel.

After he came back a bit later, he saw an ambulance in front of the house and Daisy explains to Bud that she is dead, having passed out prior to the rape and then choked to death on her own vomit.

[7] Gallo reportedly shot the film using two Aaton 16mm cameras, Super Baltar lenses, a Nagra IV-STC recorder, and an Angénieux zoom lens purchased from The Stanley Kubrick Estate.

He personally painted Bud's motorcycle, which appears in the film's opening race sequence, "dozens of times to get just the right shade of gold."

In an interview from The Guardian,[10] Sevigny said of the sex scene: "It was tough, the toughest thing I've ever done, but Vincent was very sensitized to my needs, very gentle.... And we'd been intimate in the past.

Neither side of the screen had any audio tracks attached, although the song "Milk and Honey" by folk singer Jackson C. Frank played over the trailer's duration.

Gallo, a conservative and teetotaler, has stated that he views The Brown Bunny as "a celebration of America that is virulently anti-drug and anti-pornography.

Film critic Richard von Busack of Metroactive interpreted that when Clay asks "'How long do these bunnies live?

"[6] Film critic Roger Ebert wrote that the film's controversial sex scene "and its dialogue, and a flashback to the Daisy character at a party, work together to illuminate complex things about Bud's sexuality, his guilt, and his feelings about women...Gallo takes the materials of pornography and repurposes them into a scene about control and need, fantasy and perhaps even madness.

"[13] In 2018, Gallo further explained the film's anti-pornographic themes, writing in an open letter: The Brown Bunny was an attempt at maintaining illusions and simultaneously presenting a heightened and enhanced version of reality, while hoping to result in new forms of insight into pathological behavior.

Eliot's The Waste Land, or serves as a reflection of the male condition at the intersection of love, sex and possession, The Brown Bunny is Gallo's brutal depiction of one man's tragic reality.

"[15] Steven Hyden of Grantland similarly opined that "The Brown Bunny can be viewed as a depiction of the neediness and alienation at the core of traditional masculinity.

Its final scene is perhaps best read as a critique of pornographic imagery, and a demonstration of how disturbing real live sex onscreen can be when human feeling isn't forcibly removed.

[19] Film critic Tony McKibbin also observed the film's focus on American culture, writing: "As [Clay] travels from St Louis to Salt Lake City, Gallo shows us the 'Other America', the offscreen space of a Hollywood cinema that usually suggests all the fret and anxiety lies at the end of a gun rather than in bills to pay, poor diets, low salaries and illness.

"[20] Charles Taylor of Salon.com similarly wrote that "Anyone who has ever driven for any stretch through any part of America will recognize the look of the film immediately...the view driving through suburban neighborhoods, the feel of entering some quiet enclave simply by turning a corner, the sense that everything is sleeping yet alive...It's all so familiar it feels as if the images have been plucked from your brain, and yet I can't recall any movie that has gotten the look of America that this one has...Even the hookers who approach Bud's van at every corner aren't the usual overdone movie hookers.

"[24] Paraphrasing a statement attributed to Winston Churchill, Ebert responded with, "It is true that I am fat, but one day I will be thin, and he will still be the director of The Brown Bunny."

However, Gallo continued to push back on Ebert's claim that the original and re-edited versions of the film were vastly different.

Gallo went on to speculate that Ebert wanted to distance himself from "a brutal, dismissive review of a film that other, more serious critics eventually felt differently about.

New York Times reviewer Manohla Dargis said: Even in the age of Girls Gone Wild, it's genuinely startling to see a name actress throw caution and perhaps her career to the wind.

[33]Seven years later, in an interview for Playboy's January 2011 issue, Sevigny talked about the oral sex scene in the film: "What's happened with that is all very complicated.

[36] French cinema magazine Les Cahiers du Cinéma voted The Brown Bunny one of the ten best films of 2004.

Neva Chonin of the San Francisco Chronicle called it "a somber poem of a film sure to frustrate those who prefer resolution to ambiguity... like an inscrutably bad dream, [it] lingers on.

"[41] Conversely, Moria McDonald of The Seattle Times gave the film a negative review, calling it a "self-indulgent and seemingly endless road movie".

[42] The film was praised by other filmmakers including Claire Denis,[43] Jean-Luc Godard, John Waters, Sean Penn, and Werner Herzog who called it "the best portrayal of the particular loneliness a man feels.

[23] Multiple publications have referred to the film's production budget as very low,[46] contrasting greatly with the reported $10 million number.

Australian indie label Twelve Suns re-issued The Brown Bunny soundtrack on deluxe gatefold vinyl on April 26, 2014.