Best Car Chases

 

Bullitt

Well, it was never going to be anyone else, was it? Far from just being raved about by those who enjoy a good car chase, the combination of Steve McQueen (who declined a stunt driver for most of the shots), the hilly streets of San Francisco and a wheelspin-happy Ford Mustang has proven itself to be one of the most iconic moments in the history of cinema. Clocking in at more than ten minutes, it’s one of the longest chases ever filmed and more than forty years on, Hollywood still hasn’t managed to top it. Legendary stuff.

 

The French Connection

Car-on-car chases may be ten-a-penny, but car-on-train? An altogether rarer beast, nailed by Gene Hackman in the early 70s with fender-bending aplomb. The film picked up five Oscars – Best Director and Best Picture among them – and, if there’d been a category for ‘Gnarliest Car Chase’, we’re pretty certain it would’ve walked away with a sixth. Free from ridiculous moments of gravity-defying madness, Detective Jimmy Doyle’s tyre-squealing romp through New York in a Pontiac Le Mans triumphs thanks to a gritty realism that’s become all too uncommon in the age of Bullet Time.

Blues Brothers

Back before fancy pyrotechnics and big-budget CGI effects became the norm, if you wanted it to look like you’d just driven through a mall, you had to drive through a mall. And while director John Landis at least had the courtesy to shoot this movie-stealing pursuit in an abandoned location, the carnage you see on screen is all absolutely genuine. Still, for us it’ll always be the pithy one-liners, the jolly soundtrack and Dan Aykroyd’s unshakable deadpan that elevates the sequence to legendary status.

Matrix Reloaded

For all its faults (and let’s face it, it’s got plenty), the second Matrix movie packs in one hell of an awesome car chase. The scene was shot at a decommissioned naval air base in California, where the Wachowski brothers and their men purpose built one-and-a-half mile freeway before setting about blowing stuff up on it. It’s got bikes, it’s got cars, it’s got roof-top fist-fights and, best of all, it’s got Laurence Fishburne holding a samurai sword while firing a gun at a car until it explodes. Magic.
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Quantum of Solace

Nobody does a car chase quite like Bond. And while Live and Let Die’s bus scene nearly crept onto this list thanks to sheer originality, it’s Daniel Craig’s three-minute rampage through the Italian countryside in 007’s most recent outing that really stands out. It didn’t happen easily, mind – during production an Aston Martin employee somehow managed to drive a DBS into Lake Garda en route to the set, while in the same week a stuntman landed himself in hospital while shooting the scene. Gentlemen, we salute you.

 

Bourne Identity

By the time we’d all marvelled at Jason Bourne battering people to death with books, towels and other unlikely objects in The Bourne Ultimatum, we’d almost forgotten just how adept the absent-minded super-agent is in a high-speed situation. Remember the Mini chase through Paris from the first film? Remember thinking ‘holy merde’ as beautifully timed point-of-view shots made it feel like pedestrians and lampposts and Citroen CXs were skimming your sideburns in the cinema? We rest our case.

 

The Italian Job

Admit it – the first time you saw this iconic sequence, you seriously thought about investing in a Mini, a slick paint job and a few extra headlights. You definitely at least spent a couples of hours talking like Michael Caine and whistling a certain catchy tune. Such is the inspirational, timeless appeal of watching three small British cars zipping around the streets, sewers and waterways of Turin, outfoxing Johnny foreigner and looking damn stylish in the process. And the fact that it culminates in one of the greatest movie endings of all time just makes things all the more brilliant.

 

Gone in 60 Seconds

While the 2000 remake troubled itself with petty concerns like ‘plot structure’ and ‘dialogue’, the original 1974 steal-‘em-up prioritised burnt rubber and twisted metal (not to mention excellent facial hair) above just about everything else. In fact,famed for its laughable acting and dodgy camerawork, it’s a car chase first and a movie second, and is most fondly remembered for a particularly hairy 40-minute scene in which no fewer than 100 cars meet an unceremonious doom. Even without Angelina Jolie, that’s a lot of fun indeed

 

Ronin

Released on the cusp of the CGI boom, props are due to director John Frankenheimer for shunning the help of technology in favour of 300 of the world’s most skilled stunt drivers. The result is some of the most authentic chase scenes ever committed to film, with the climactic tussle through the streets and tunnels of Paris being the undoubted highlight. Sparks fly, fruit stalls get knocked over and Jean Reno does his ‘unimpressed Frenchman’ face better than ever, as Audis, Mercedes and Peugeots duke it out to the bitter end.

 

The Dark Knight

The chase may be brief, but it’s the resulting David vs Goliath fight to the death between Heath Ledger’s tanker and Christian Bale’s gun-toting Batpod that earns this showdown its place among the best. A nifty bit of wire trickery sees the Caped Crusader eventually come out on top, and in the process deliver one of the most jaw-dropping stunts Hollywood’s produced in years. But, impressive as the victory is, we’re deducting points for the subsequent showboating flourish. Performing a U-turn by driving up a wall, Batty? Plain unnecessary.
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