Any gearhead with a pulse and an internet connection knows the eighth (yes, eighth) installation of the never-ending Fast & Furious franchise is set to be foisted upon us next Friday. Fun challenge: sneak a fifth of Smirnoff into the theatre and down a shot every time someone says the word “family.” Please make sure to take a cab home.
Nevertheless, here’s an easy question not asked to date in this QOTD series: what’s your favorite car movie?
There’s no shortage of them, to be sure. Hollywood produced racing flicks ranging from Days of Thunder — deploying in-race footage and an entertaining, loosely grounded plot — to the flaming dumpster fire that was Sly Stallone’s Driven. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Ron Howard’s film Rush did a splendid job of depicting the rivalry between F1 stars James Hunt and Niki Lauda during the 1976 Formula One season, a time when the cars were little more than rolling coffins filled with gasoline.
The British documentary about Ayrton Senna, depicting his life and death, relies mostly on archival footage and not-oft-seen home video clips provided by the Senna family. Absent of formal commentary, the biopic allows the viewer to immerse themselves in the Brazilian driver’s tumultuous F1 career. It very nearly shows as a live-action drama and not a posthumous tribute.
Kids movies count too: Cars is a movie that, even as an adult, I won’t turn off if it happens to be on the screen when I walk into a room. (Only the first Cars movie, though; the abomination that was Cars 2 gets zapped off our television quicker than Jimmie Johnson racks up championships). Decidedly non-kid movies like the new Mad Max and The Car are suitable fodder for poker night out in the garage. While some movies have great car chase scenes (Ronin springs to mind), they’re not strictly car flicks but still check the boxes for a suitably octane-charged night at the movies.
For your choice, make sure to stick with celluloid featuring enough car action to make your popcorn taste like 10W-30.
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
Cannonball Run
Ronin
Rush
Smokey and the Bandit
The Italian Job (2003)
Oops – I meant Gumball Rally, not Cannonball Run….
Whats-a behind you is not important.
I don’t know if it is just because I am a chauvinist for American cars but I never really dug Ronin.
Favorite: “Circuit”: A documentary-ish film about the 1981 Can-Am racing season – to be clear, this was the single-seat Can-Am, where the cars were based on old F5000 cars.
Teo Fabi, Danny Sullivan, Bobby Rahal, Paul Newman..and many more.
Sadly, I can’t find it online anywhere, and I’m pretty sure my old Betamax copy is gone.
As is my Betamax player.
Weird that this film isn’t on IMDB. It came out on VHS in 1991.
http://www.progcovers.com/motor/lifebeginsat80mph.jpg
There is a single copy available on Amazon for $30.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0135L3KG6/ref=tmm_other_meta_binding_used_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=used&qid=&sr=
Love the Beast
From A to B: Tales of Modern Motoring – Over the Moon With the Cavalier
Gone in 60 Seconds (the remake though)
Driving Miss Daisy
Tucker – The Man and His Dream
“Gone In 60 Seconds,” either the original or remake are both terrible movies, but at least H. B. Haliki’s original was more cheeky and upfront about its low rent origins, and for those of us familiar with or grew up in or near the South Bay area of LA county in those days it’s a bit of a nostalgia trip.
I know, it’s somewhat of a guilty pleasure for me, as are most Nicolas Cage movies in fact. That guy may not be the world’s best actor, but he’s cool. As is the movie.
It’s not a car movie, but Infinitely Polar Bear (2015, starring Mark Ruffalo) has a handful of marvelous car stars.
1. a late ’50s, or early ’60s Citroen DS wagon. Ruffalo, playing a bipolar father, is a riot driving that thing around with the two little girls in the back seat. (The movie is taking place in the ’80s.)
2. a Volvo P544
3. A Valiant or Dart circa 1971
4. a ’50s or ’60s era Bentley or Rolls–belonged to a wealthy relative in the movie
Gumball Rally
Not necessarily a car movie but American Graffiti
Driving Miss Daisy? Seriously?
I would add Godfather (the original)…amazing how many scenes involved great old cars…Sonny getting whacked at the toll both, Paulie whacked in the car, “Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.”, Sonny being driven to the meeting where he kills his fathers rival, Sonny’s wife blown up in his car, the closing scene where Connie’s husband is strangled in the car….so many great pivotal scenes where Coppola used cars.
American Graffiti is very much a car movie. In 1962, George Lucas was racing at fairgrounds in much the same way as the characters in the film did on the streets.
Agree on American Graffiti. Gumball Rally was cool as well. Both had Cobra’s in them.
“Decidedly non-kid movies like the new Mad Max and The Car are suitable fodder for poker night out in the garage”
But TTAC already told me that Fury Road “is simultaneously boring and overwhelming, slow-paced yet carelessly plotted, predictable and joyless” feminist PC brainwashing.
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2015/06/ttac-movies-mad-max-fury-road/
Which is it, I’m so confused?
As for car movies, “Mad Mad Mad Mad World” and “Flash of Genius” get my vote.
“Torque” gets an honorable mention for hilariously enjoyable garbage.
Flash of Genius +1
2nd on Mad, mad World.
Tops is Le Mans.
Those that never raced think it’s “a mess”. However it captures, perhaps inadverdently, the chaos and myriad plots that carry on simultainiously in racing.
Plus the racing scenes are the best and will likely never be rivalled due to cost and danger.
LeMans, it made me aware of sportscar racing and changed my life.
Second favorite: “The Speed Merchants”, a documentary directed by IMSA racer Michael Keyser about the 1972 World Championship of Makes season. I saw it in a little theater in Watkins Glen, during the week leading up to the Six Hour/Can Am race weekend in 1973.
The older I get the more I like Vanishing Point.
Vanishing Point (both versions)
Bullitt
Dirty Larry Crazy Mary
Death Proof (Both Versions)
Maximum Overdrive (campy but worth mentioning)
“Dirty Larry Crazy Mary”
On my list too, but I think Mary was dirty and Larry was crazy. :)
Bullitt and Ronin.
It’s not a movie per se, but the Japanese animated series Wangan Midnight is the only show/movie I have ever seen that faithfully captures car enthusiast culture in all of its absurdity.
Tucker
Gran Torino: if only for the end when the ‘will’ is read with his instructions on what not to do.
Two Lane Black Top: probably responsible for why I have a tri-5 in the garage today.
+1 True Blue and Not a Luddite…y’all beat me to both Bullitt and Dirty Larry et al
Any list that doesn’t contain Bullitt, turn in both your TTAC card AND your Man Card.
I would add the Bourne series….chase/crash scenes with Audis, Bimmers, and Citroens and Land Rovers. Cars depicted as driven with skill and verve, integral to the plot. Tasty
Indeed, the second Bourne movie taught me that a G-Wagon can outrun an M5.
It also taught me that a Lada can defeat a G-Wagen.
I mean obviously, it always would.
ITYM Volga.
Cars 2
Larry the Cable Guy should have won an Oscar for his performance.
You’re triggering poor Corey.
I’m fine, as I do not recognize him as a “performer” of any kind.
Bullitt (but the Mustang is better than most of the plot or dialogue.)
The Green Hornet (2011) the car, and the garage are the best part of the movie.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Hey Ian Fleming wrote the book and Roald Dahl wrote the screen play.)
Ronin, Gumball Rally, Cannonball Run movies.
Bullit has a good chase scene, but the rest of it was kind of dull if I’m honest.
The Blues Brothers. I was tall and skinny, owned a 1974 Plymouth Fury ex company car, and had a friend who was short and stocky when that movie came out, so it was our “theme” movie. The interior scenes still bring back memories, and the chase and crash scenes were great. Can still quote a lot of the lines from it; though I have only seen it once in the past 30 years. Great soundtrack too.
Also liked the original Cars movie as well.
One of my favorite lines is when they’re driving around the mall and crash through the plate glass window of an auto showroom.
“Looks like the new Oldsmobiles are in early this year!”
“This place has everything!”
I think I’ve told this story here but my dad worked for a Chrysler dealer in the 80s. They had a couple of cars on display at the local mall one week and they needed to be removed after the mall closed on Sunday. My dad enlisted me to help and I got to drive a Turismo through the South Shore Mall. My 17 yo self pretended I was Elwood cruising through the mall, albeit in slow motion. Some things you don’t forget.
“Does this come in a Miss Piggy?”
There are so many you could fill a whole thread with them, our favorites were:
Our Lady of Blessed Acceleration, don’t fail me now.
It’s 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark… and we’re wearing sunglasses.
Hit it.
It’s got a cop motor, a 440 cubic inch plant, it’s got cop tires, cop suspensions, cop shocks. It’s a model made before catalytic converters so it’ll run good on regular gas. What do you say, is it the new Bluesmobile or what?
Of course, my Fury did not have any of this. You could tell they were driving an ex-cop car in the chase scene under the Chicago El; my speedometer only went up to 120, but theirs was much higher than that. And they *were* going that fast during that scene.
The Pinto went faster after it got dropped from a helicopter from like 2,000 feet.
“The Blues Brothers” answers a central question that movie buffs always asked: what if the entire cast and crew of a big budget movie had an unlimited supply of cocaine for the entire production? And now we have our (glorious) answer!
“unlimited supply of cocaine…”
And powder blue and white ChiTown ChryCo cannon fodder…
I’ll try to throw some oddballs out there:
The Hitcher (1986) – some great chase scenes
To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)
Christine (1983)
The French Connection (1971)
The Seven-Ups (1973)
Sorcerer (1977) – the trucks over the wooden bridge scene!
Grand Prix (1966) – captures the sheer speed of those early cars
My personal favs – and the ones that got me into muscle cars:
The Road Warrior (Mad Max II)
and the original Mad Max
The Jurassic Park Ford Explorer.
Absolutely loved this vehicle since seeing the film as a kid. First gen Explorers were always a favorite of mine, but adding one of the most distinctive paint jobs in automotive history just sweetened the deal.
As an adult, I decided to own this dream car and bought a 1992 Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer with only 61kmiles that I found on Craigslist (after searching years tirelessly for a clean example). The truck has been modified with the color scheme, grill guards, and aside from not having the glass roof (too expensive and impractical), it’s pretty screen accurate. We’ve even done The Hollywood Christmas Parade, shows, and museum dinosaur exhibits in it. We purchased it two years ago and at 65k miles currently, it gets a lot of attention and is great fun.
It has its own Instagram (I don’t even have one) full of sightings #jpexplorer04
Drive (2011)
Nightcrawler (2014)
Dukes of Hazzard (2005) – I’m in the minority for liking this.
All of the Transporter films, ridiculous though they are.
Not a movie, but Breaking Bad was very car-literate, and the cars the characters drove (and their subsequent upgrades) all matched the story arcs.
The Senna documentary is great as well.
I think Drive is quite underrated, possibly because the advertising made it out to be something it wasn’t (an action movie). The choice of an Impala SS as a getaway car – and the way he uses it – is much more clever than most such movies.
I totally forgot about Drive, the automotive choices were fantastic! His personal cruiser of a 73′ Chevelle in primer along with the Impala. I alwasy thought it was the standard non SS version that he used, with some slight enhancements..
Well, they do imply that it’s an upgraded standard Impala. But the soundtrack sounds like a V8, and they mention roughly 300HP, so I choose to believe it’s an SS with the badges removed. That’d be the easier way to achieve it, certainly.
Blues Brothers
Tie: Mad Max Fury Road and The Road Warrior
The Car (1977)… hey I was 6 years old and it scared the crap out of me. Probably Rifftrax fodder if I watched it now.
The Blues Brothers +1
OK, I’ll toss one in that everyone hates on: Speed Racer. Yes, it’s incredibly dumb. But check it out on a good quality 4K TV – all the race sequences look SICK. And I want the damn Mach 5…bad.
Mine? Le Mans. I just watched a great documentary about it, too (Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans), with Chad McQueen, and important figures from the original production.
Bullitt, Vanishing Point, Two Lane Blacktop, Gumball Rally, The Italian Job
Gumball Rally. Plot? Who cares, just listen to the sounds in that movie. It also has some good lines. “Whatsa behind me…”, “We dont even have a fixed wing…”.
Bullit as a movies wasn’t all that great, but the car chase was decent.
Vanishing Point(s), but the first was better.
Hooper wasn’t bad. Actually, most Burt Reynolds car movies were decent enough and didn’t even take themselves seriously.
Rush was pretty good.
There are a lot of car movies out there I wouldn’t turn off if they were on, even “The Wraith”.
Tucker – A Man and His Dream
Grand Prix
LeMans
Both American Graffitis (one of the most underrated sequels made)
Rush (currently my all time favorite)
Torque (guilty pleasure, and I remember what Triumph went thru to get the tie-in, their first major)
It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
Then there’s the bikes:
The Leather Boys (my all time favorite)
The Wild One
Easy Rider
The Wild Angels
Run Angel Run
Born Losers
The Glory Stompers
Girl on a Motorcycle
Hell’s Angels on Wheels
CC and Company
On Any Sunday
Stone Cold
White Lightning (1973), with Burt Reynolds. I saw it in the theater when it came out – twice!
Shaky Puddin’!
Any movie where people don’t upshift four-speed boxes fifteen times in a row, and pass one another on racetracks by suddenly deciding to use the throttle while halfway down the straight.
The sh*t really grinds my gears. Le Mans and Grand Prix were both OK on that front, IIRC, but it’s been a while.
Watch the documentary on Le Mans (Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans). Steve McQueen’s insistence on authenticity and realism almost sank the movie. It ran way over budget, the original director (John Sturges) quit, replaced by an unknown, Lee Katzin, whose edict was to get McQueen and the budget under control, and get the film finished (filming started right after the 1970 race, and dragged on for five months, finally wrapping in November). McQueen’s film would have been a docudrama, with basically no plot.
McQueen’s interference also destroyed the career of the original screenwriter, Alan Trustman. Trustman wrote the scripts for Bullitt, and The Thomas Crown Affair. After a pre-production script review at McQueen’s house, Trustman was fired, and said he never got another call to write a script. He ended up going into the currency trading business.
That was a good documentary. McQueen was quite the d**che.
“Eat My Dust” with Ron Howard. An actual ‘car’ movie and not one where cars play a ‘supporting role’ as used in some of the others mentioned above.
Very different from the other films listed here, but Genevieve (from 1953) is what I think of any time someone mentions a “car” movie. It’s just a biiiit more old-fashioned than most would appreciate.
Several Bond movies, but I’ll suggest these (yes, Daniel Craig is my favorite Bond actor):
Casino Royale
Quantum of Solace (opening scene)
Also: Speed
Too bad the rest of Quantum was hot garbage.
And the very low speed chase through Rome in Spectre was also boring. Who knew all cars disappeared off the roads of Rome at night?
Agreed, lots of Bond movies have good car chases/elements a car lover can appreciate.
I always liked the Bond chase where he tools around in the Renault with the top and back end chopped off. LOL…didn’t know Renaults could run without gas.
Was that the 2CV one?
Edit:
DERP DERP… Citroen, Renault… whatever, huh?
This thread made me watch some excerpts from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Uff da! Sally Ann Howes was Truly Scrumptious for a skinny woman!
Yep, and I’d say with that name, she’d have made a great Bond Girl.
(After all, Ian Fleming did write this story. And Albert Broccoli produced the movie. And there was a gadget-laden car. And the guy who played Goldfinger was the villain.)
Not to mention appearances by an airship, steamship, and steam train. I thought of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as well.
LOL. I was going to mention “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”.
Besides the obvious (but still great) films frequently mentioned the one that made me absolutely giddy and on the edge of my seat was ‘Death Proof’.
Dazed and Confused. Everyone has some nice late ’50s- early ’70s car… except for O’Banion’s primered crapbox Plymouth.
Forgot about that one. Great movie.
If you liked that you should watch “Everyone Wants Some.”
Same director. Lots of early-’80s car porn (well, as porn-y as early-’80s cars can be).
Bullitt, the original Vanishing Point, American Graffiti.
Christine
The Blues Brothers
National Lampoon’s Vacation
Herbie the Lovebug
Hollywood Knights
Gone in 60 Seconds (remake)
Smokey and the Bandit
…in no particular order.
What about National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, with the Taurus wagon sans roof rack that can fit under a logging trucks, and jump snow banks in a single bound.
Herbie the Love Bug +1: great childhood memories
More of a road trip movie but “Fandango” with Costner and Judd Nelson was great. There is what you might call an homage to “American Graffiti” that is hilarious.
No love for Stroker Ace?
Or Talladega Nights?
SMH
On a serious note; Duel, original Vanishing Point and 2 Lane Blacktop.
I am here to ask about Talladega Nights as well, finest of all the NASCAR movies.
Speed Racer (I agree, it’s the most visually arresting car movie ever)
Mad Max Fury Road
Ronin (this movie has the two best car chases in cinema)
Rush
Grand Prix (Frankenheimer said, late in life, that he couldn’t have flown the camera helicopters as close to the action today, because of insurance requirements)
Cars
Lots of other great movies for people who like cars out there, but I think these ones put the car first, and in interesting ways.
Duel – forgot about that excellent choice. An early Speilberg film about road rage, and he reused the truck crash sound effects for “Jaws”. Genius.
‘The Spy Who Loved Me’
The Lotus Esprit is still my first and true love.
“Corvette Summer” (1978) The movie’s tworth watching, still holds up good.
“Bullit”? Just skip to the car chase. But if you really want a “car chase”, “To Live and Die in LA”. Watch the whole thing, it’s one of the best movies to come out of the mid ’80s.
So glad to see that someone out there still remembers Corvette Summer. It was probably the very first car movie I ever watched. Seriously weapons-grade nostalgia for me. I think it aired on TV not that long after Star Wars was released.
As a kid, I used to love the styling of the Corvette because it looked different from just about every other car on the road. Just the experience of seeing Luke Skywalker piloting one of my favorite cars from that era was all it took to ensure that I’d spend the next four decades as a certified carguy/sci-fi nerd.
Duel
Ahhhhhh….
Beat me to it. Except for me it was kind of an anti-car movie. Dennis Weaver was such a whiny annoying defensive-driving-instructor type. If the lead character was a NYC cabbie on vacation out west, that movie would have been about 10 minutes long.
Damn, beat me to it.
“Duel”
White Line Fever with the Blue Mule was another good one with a truck.
Speed Racer the cartoon
Go Speed Racer
Go Speed Racer
Go Speed Racer
GO
Can I say “Wayne’s World” without getting kicked off the site?
How cool to be that age again, just hanging out with your friends, driving around in an AMC Pacer with its own licorice dispenser. You got to love that.
Two-Lane Blacktop
I just saw the “24 Hour War” that Adam Carolla did about the Ferrari vs Ford rivalry at Le Mans and thought it was well worth watching if you’re a car enthusiast.
I’m not even really into racing, but I found it fascinating.
Thanks for refreshing my memory:
The Blues Brothers
Duel
Vanishing Point (orig)
And
A Man and a Woman
Great period scenes of the male lead testing a GT40. And some from the Monte Carlo Rallye. Iirc they were in a Mini.
Not a movie, but the original Mannix car was very sweet.
World’s Fastest Indian – great true(ish) story and nice recreation of 1960s Bonneville.
+1 – excellent true story, in my collection.
Death on the Highway
Highways of Agony
Signal 30
Repo Man and Blues Brothers.
I’d have to put Heart Like a Wheel in the top 20.
Christine!
Used Cars.
How did I forget about this one?! I have the special edition DVD! This was Kurt Russell’s best movie.
How about “C’était un rendez-vous” a 1976 short (8:35) by French director Claude Lelouch, who also made the classic 1966 film “Un Homme et Une Femme” (A Man and a Woman), a love story set around the LeMans 24H race. Rendez-vous was shot very early in the morning in the streets of Paris with no film permits at all and without closing the roads. The red lights blown through, the civilian traffic and the scrambling pedestrians were all real.
See it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvDXlDxMnb4
Filming this was an act of monumental irresponsibility and the result is the best pure driving sequence I know of, and perhaps one of the best that’s ever been. However not everything you see or hear was quite what we were led to believe. The Wikipedia article on it tells some of the true story, but not all of it (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C'était_un_rendez-vous).
You can see a “making of” video with Lelouch (in French with subtitles) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDXFvtVlYcM
There’s a really good story about the aftermath that Lelouch only told long afterward in an interview that I located over a decade ago on the director’s personal web site, now found here: http://www.lesfilms13.com/cetait-un-rendez-vous/
Although he didn’t use the Ferrari, it’s true that he made Rendez-vous entirely unofficially and without any kind of permit to film the high speed drive. When the film airs in public he gets arrested and hauled in front of the Chief of Police of Paris. Here’s Lelouch’s priceless account (my translation from the original French):
“Standing before the Chief of Police I felt like a child about to be punished. I braced myself for it to be harsh.
In a prosecutorial voice the Chief of Police, who had personally summoned me, recites a long list of the driving offenses I’d committed while making Rendez-vous. It seemed endless. At the end he glares at me, sticks out his hand, and tells me to hand over my drivers license. It doesn’t seem like a good time to argue. I comply and he takes it, looks at it musingly for a few seconds and then…gives it back to me with a broad smile.
‘I promised to take away your license,’ he explains, ‘But I never said for how long.’ To my astonishment he adds, ‘My children really enjoyed your little film!’ ”
Neil
to live and die in la, if you like b-bodies, diplomats, panthers.
“Any gearhead with a pulse and an internet connection knows the eighth (yes, eighth) installation of the never-ending Fast & Furious franchise is set to be foisted upon us next Friday.”
Gearhead? Check!
Pulse and internet? Check and check!
Fast & Furious franchise forthcoming film? Couldn’t give another flying F…
Yeah, that must be why he said not “…is eagerly awaiting”, but ”…knows [F&F8] is _set to be foisted upon_ us”.
* _Death Race 2000_ — The original, from the seventies. With Sly Stallone in a bit part (but of course billed first, in humongo-letters, on later re-runs) and, eh, which of the Carradine brothers was it?, in the lead as “Frankenstein”.
* Oh yeah, _Repo Man_ — Thanks to someone above for reminding me. Must have seen that only the once, so it almost slipped my mind.
* _Smokey and the Bandit_ — Purely for nostalgia.
* And of course — _Blues Brothers_
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World – first movie I saw in a theater
Duel
Gumball Rally
and don’t shoot me…
The Great Race – Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Natalie Wood and all those cars
Not a car movie, but Bridge of Spies had a chase scene with a Volvo p1800, and a ’57 Chevy, which conveyed Francis Gary Powers over the bridge back to freedom close to the end of the movie
One word: GETAWAY
OK, more words: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2167202/
“Former race car driver Brent Magna is pitted against the clock as he commandeers a custom Shelby Super Snake Mustang, taking it and its unwitting owner on a high-speed adventure at the command of a mysterious villain on a race against time to save the life of his kidnapped wife.”
A-W-ESome.