Car chases in films are almost as old as the medium itself, though it’s really in the last 50 years that they’ve become a way to market an entire movie. There are a lot of amazing chase sequences out there, so here are fifteen of our favorite movie car chase scenes, and something wild about each one.
The Blues Brothers Final Chase Had To Be Reshot
There are two great car chases in 1980’s The Blues Brothers. The first is the one in the mall, but the second is one of the most legendary of all time. Estimates vary as to how many cars were destroyed in that final chase, but it’s safe to say it was at or near a hundred vehicles, which was a record at the time. The most amazing fact, though, is that one particular sequence in that scene had to be re-shot because the cars were traveling so fast through the streets of downtown Chicago that it looked fake. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, director John Landis decided to film the scene again, but with pedestrians walking on the street to show the audience just how fast the cars were moving.
The Italian Job Minis Were All Electric
Electric vehicles are all the rage these days, but 20 years ago, when Mark Wahlberg and co. remade The Italian Job, they were almost unheard of. The car chase, an homage to the original Italian Job from 1969, features three Mini Coopers racing through the Los Angeles subway system. Because the city of LA was worried about fumes from combustion engines, the filmmakers asked BMW, which owns Mini, for a few electric cars.
The problem was that BMW hadn’t yet designed or built any electric ones, so the stunt team, including transportation coordinator John Carpenter, actually designed and built their own electric engines and installed them in the Minis so that they could shoot the now-iconic scene.
The Chase In Bullitt Wasn’t In The Script
Many film historians point to 1968’s Bullitt as the first modern car chase. You can argue about how true that is, but what is definitely true is that the chase wasn’t even in the original script. Bullitt was based on a novel by Robert L. Fish called Mute Witness and in the book there is no car chase. The film’s star, Steve McQueen, who was a famous thrill-seeker and race car driver in his spare time, came up with the idea, telling Motor Trend in 1969 (via Hagerty):
I always felt that a motor-racing sequence in the street could be very exciting because you have real objects to work with, like bouncing off a parked car. An audience digs sitting there watching somebody do something I’m sure almost all of them would like to do.
Audiences sure are lucky for McQueen’s inspired addition to the scene. Today, the film is pretty much only remembered for the car chase, which is still one of the best of all time, and won the film its lone Oscar for Best Editing.
The French Connection Didn’t Have Permits
The famous chase scene in The French Connection has some people in common with Bullitt, including one of the stunt drivers, Bill Hickman. The difference, or course, is that Gene Hackman’s character, Popeye Doyle, is chasing a subway train, instead of a Dodge Charger. One other major difference is that the film shot it all on open streets, not closed to traffic. According to the DVD commentary, (via Hagerty):
The Producers obtained a permit to shoot on the elevated train. Otherwise, there were no proper permits, so assistant directors, off-duty officers, and (the producers) made sure no one gave the production trouble.
It’s frankly a miracle that no bystanders were injured or killed in the shoot, but there is no question it adds to the authentic vibe that the movie creates around New York City in the 1970s.
The Italian Job (1969) Aston Martin Wasn’t An Aston Martin
Another of the early pioneers in car chases was the original Italian Job from 1969. The British production set the standard for European sports cars tearing up the streets of the continent, including one of the most iconic British cars of all time, the Aston Martin DB4. According to what stunt driver David Salamone told Top Gear, due to a production mishap, the DB4 audiences see blowing up as it plummets down a cliff at the end was actually a Lancia Flaminia 3C.
Mad Max: Fury Road Custom Built 150 Cars
There is a whole lot that can be said about the car chases in Mad Max: Fury Road, but maybe the most insane would be that, unlike most car chases where the stunt coordinators and producers only need to customize a few things on standard cars, that clearly wasn’t going to work for the stylish post-apocalyptic word. So, what did they do? They designed 88 custom cars, and with duplicates, according to production designer Colin Gibson, in an interview with Motor Trend, they had a total of 150 or so cars built just for the movie. In the end, only one survived.
Ronin Used 100 Stunt Drivers In One Scene
The two car chases in Ronin are so good that the movie was immediately vaulted into the pantheon of great action sequences on film. In one chase, the production used 100 stunt drivers to film the insane action. In the second chase scene, Robert De Niro’s character pursues Natascha McElhone’s character through the streets of Paris, including a white-knuckle drive against traffic on a three-lane road. 100 drivers were used for the cars coming straight at the protagonists. There is good reason the scene is so iconic today.
Fast Five Had Only One CGI Shot In The Most Famous Chase
The Fast And The Furious franchise is both praised and lambasted for its car stunts, especially the use of CGI when so many epic chase scenes in cinema history have been shot without it. One of the franchise’s most iconic chases, though, when Brian and Dom drag a bank vault through Rio, was shot mostly without the use of special effects, only requiring one shot with a CG vault.
Death Proof Used No CGI At All
Quentin Tarantino fans usually don’t hold Death Proof up as his best work, but that doesn’t mean the movie isn’t worth watching. The car chase scenes alone are amazing. In true Tarantino fashion, the director didn’t use any CGI at all for any of the shots. He wanted them to look authentic and since the whole movie was an ode to the old car movies of the ‘70s, he had to shoot it the way he did and it meant stuntwoman Zoë Bell was really on the hood of that car the whole time.
The Man With The Golden Gun Used A Computer To Calculate A Jump For The First Time
The James Bond franchise is filled with amazing action and incredible car chases, but one stunt stands above the rest, despite the cheesy slide whistle effect added to it. In The Man With The Golden Gun, the franchise became the first to use computer modeling to design a jump. According to Jaleponik, it was computer scientists at the Calspan Corporation who first modeled the physics involved in the famous “corkscrew” jump Bond makes over a river in an AMC. Now if they would just get rid of the stupid slide whistle in future edits…
Vanishing Point Cars Were Unmodified
The now-cult classic, Vanishing Point, was shot on a shoestring budget and that meant using basically factory cars for its chases. There were multiple Dodge Chargers in the film and none were modified except to add some racing shocks. In fact, the stunt coordinator chose the Charger specifically because it didn’t need to be modified and could handle whatever stunts they wanted to put it through.
Smokey And The Bandit Made The Trans Am So Popular, You Couldn’t Get One
There are few more iconic cars in film history than Burt Reynolds' Pontiac Trans Am in Smokey In The Bandit. The film was a huge hit in 1977 and even though the cast includes Reynolds, Sally Field, Jerry Reed, and Jackie Gleason, the star of the movie became that car. It was so popular that, according to director Hal Needham, there was a six-month waiting list to buy the car.
Duel’s Final Stunt Almost Ended In Tragedy
It’s hard to believe Steven Spielberg got his start in television. His first full-length film was the made-for-TV Duel, about a man pursued and harassed by a crazy truck (whose driver remains unseen for most of the film). That truck almost killed a stunt driver when a mechanical problem while filming the movie's climactic scene forced the driver to stay inside until just before it tumbles off a cliff and explodes. The driver bailed at the very last second and any longer would have meant he would’ve gone down with it.
The Roads Weren’t Closed For Baby Driver Production
One of the most unbelievable stories on this list is that the famous highway chase in Baby Driver was shot on a road that the city of Atlanta didn’t allow the production to shut down. If you’ve ever been stuck in Atlanta traffic, you understand why, but how they shot it is incredible. Instead of closing the highway completely, the production had the police performing a “rolling barricade” around the cars while they filmed. You can take shots at the soundtrack for Baby Driver, but you can’t criticize the action.
Mission Impossible: Fallout Had To Find Used M5s
The Mission Impossible franchise is yet another that film fans can always count on to bring great car chases, and the latest installment, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One is no different. In Mission Impossible: Fallout, production ran into a problem. For the BMW M5s used in one of the chases, BMW couldn’t provide any of the retro cars, which, according to stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood, meant they had to go out and find used ones on the open market. Eastwood had to tell a little fib to many of the sellers that their beloved cars weren’t going to get trashed in the filming of the movie, which, of course, they were.
There is little doubt that car chases will continue to drive action movies forever. You can check out our 2023 movie release schedule to find out when you can scratch that itch for more heart-pounding driving stunts with movies like the latest Mission Impossible film and Gran Tourismo set to come out this year.
