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Josh Hirsch suggests these films:
"The Passenger (note the Jack Nicholson repeat -- kind of interesting)
A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (Peter Medak)
Messidor (Alain Tanner)
Fearless (Peter Weir)
Ordinary People
Naked (Mike Leigh)
None But the Lonely Heart (Clifford Odets - Cary Grant)
Bagdad Cafe
Thelma and Louise
The Sheltering Sky
Stranger Than Paradise (Jim Jarmusch)
 
Perhaps people could refresh my memory as to whether any characters in these
films actually do anything like what I've described. It also strikes me that
an action like this would be typical of films by Godard, Antonioni, Wenders,
Altman, Tanner, Bresson, Akerman, etc."
 
THE PASSENGER doesn't really fit since Nicholson's dead at the end (I think),
although this might apply to Romy Schneider's character.  ORDINARY PEOPLE
has Mary Tyler Moore walking out of the family, leaving father and son
to console one another--male bonding at last!  I don't think THELMA AND
LOUISE really counts since they're headed into the Grand Canyon--unless
they have Chuck Jones Coyote-like powers of rejuvenation.  On the other hand,
there's at least a bit of room in that final freeze frame of BUTCH CASSIDY
AND THE SUNDANCE KID for doubt about their fates--but I don't think it really
matches the kind of "bolting" you've described.  BADLANDS doesn't really
count, either, I think, since the protagonists are arrested at the end.
 
STRANGER THAN PARADISE is a good match, as would work by the European
modernists you've cited.  Consider L'AVVENTURA, where a bolting protagonist
*initiates* the narrative.  The final scene of THE 400 BLOWS would seem
to fit.  Sometimes classical Hollywood can do it too--consider THE NUN'S
STORY.
 
How about Bergman, THE PASSION OF ANNA; Mizoguchi, OSAKA ELEGY (but it's
been a while since I've seen it); Wenders, PARIS, TEXAS; Sirk, ALL THAT
HEAVEN ALLOWS.  In THE HEIRESS, de Haviland bolts *in* instead of out.
 
The endings of HIGH NOON and DIRTY HARRY suggest bolting from public
service (but Harry reconsidered in the sequels).  LAST TANGO IN PARIS
is probably too-THELMA AND LOUISE-like too count.  SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
has Hannibal Lecter off on his own at the end.  John Wayne walks off into
the sunset at the end of THE SEARCHERS.  Everybody leaves--in one way or
another--in THE GRIFTERS.  Does a final descent into madness count?--Then
how about MORGAN and BRAZIL (and PSYCHO)?  BODY HEAT does show us where
Kathleen Turner has run off to--I think this category needs to have some
uncertainty attached to the bolting.
 
People are always running off in Tennesee Williams' work--see STREETCAR
NAMED DESIRE (though Blanche is actually carried off) and GLASS MENAGERIE.
SERPICO goes into hiding.  Mad Max and Eastwood's High Plains Drifter have
a tendency to disappear after their work is done.  Anti-musicals?--
ALL THAT JAZZ, PENNIES FROM HEAVEN and NEW YORK, NEW YORK (but these are
stretching things).
 
BLADE RUNNER ends with escape from LA (in both versions).  SHANE is yet
another gunfighter riding off into the sunset.
 
Several kids disappear (a la
L'AVVENTURA) in PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK.
 
--Don Larsson, Mankato State U., MN