Bob Rafelson, an iconoclastic director and producer, was a central figure in the New Hollywood movement that jump-started American cinema in the 1960s. He died on July 23 at his home in Aspen, CO. He was 89.

Mr. Rafelson was best known for “Five Easy Pieces,” his 1970 movie about a classical pianist, played by Jack Nicholson, who spurns the bourgeois life to drift through California working as an oil rigger. Nominated for four Academy Awards, the film embodied the era’s anti-establishment mood and cemented Mr. Nicholson’s position as a Hollywood leading man.

Mr. Rafelson was also the man behind the success of “Easy Rider,” about road-tripping bikers who, as the tag line put it, “went looking for America and couldn’t find it anywhere.”

Even after he retired from moviemaking, he was often called upon to reminisce about the mythic days of the New Hollywood. In a 2010 video interview, Mr. Rafelson described his production company, BBS, as “a company that could go out and say, all right, now let’s get the maddest creatures we can find on the planet. They turned out to be some really first-grade wackos.”