The 30 great­est car chase scenes in movie history

The movie car chase almost as old as the medi­um itself, so it was always going to be tricky pick­ing out a mere 30 favourites. Rank­ing them on top of that is just ask­ing for trou­ble. But, to cel­e­brate the release of Edgar Wright’s Baby Dri­ver, we thought we’d do just that. The direc­tor him­self has cit­ed sev­er­al of the below films as key influ­ences on his high-octane lat­est – but how many have made it into the busi­ness end of our list?

Maybe it’s cheat­ing a lit­tle to start our count­down with a motor­bike chase, but it didn’t feel right to leave out one of the great cult road movies. A diminu­tive cop­per (Robert Blake) is in pur­suit of a bike gang, cuing a chase straight out of the Peck­in­pah play­book. While most chas­es remain about the need for speed, direc­tor James William Guer­cio nails the slo-mo bet­ter than the Wachowskis ever did.

The stunt-jumps (into con­ve­nient­ly placed piles of card­board box­es) are cer­tain­ly impres­sive, but the cen­tral chase in this Jack­ie Chan vehi­cle remains pret­ty con­ven­tion­al. Until its final moments, that is. Pur­sued by cars and motor­bikes in a con­cept Mit­subishi, Chan and his plus one find them­selves trapped between two vehi­cles on a bridge. Cue an escape of Bond-lev­el ​’80s pre­pos­ter­ous­ness. We won’t spoil it here, but check out the clip below…

The Bus­by Berke­ley of icon­ic car chas­es sees a trio of Mini Coop­ers take to the streets of Turin for some syn­chro­nised manoeu­vres over unex­pect­ed sur­faces. The edit­ing kills the buzz long before that bloody song does. A trio of cock­sure dri­vers in red, white and blue, ram­page through a Euro­pean city with plans to steal its gold, before their hubris sees them dan­gling off a cliff and out of ideas. As Brex­it metaphors go…

A decade before Steve McQueen burnt rub­ber through the streets of San Fran­cis­co, Don Siegel end­ed this crack­ing noir with a race towards the Gold­en Gate Bridge. Shots from inside the vehi­cle – where snarling dope-smug­gler Eli Wal­lach holds a moth­er and daugh­ter hostage – make sur­pris­ing­ly effec­tive use of rear pro­jec­tion, but it’s the expan­sive loca­tion pho­tog­ra­phy on and around the under-con­struc­tion free­way that dis­avows its B‑picture credentials.

It may be the worst entry in the series, but the Wach­woskis still show a dab hand when it comes to the set-piece. A spe­cial­ly-con­struct­ed free­way sets the stage for the film’s extend­ed chase sequence, thrilling­ly struc­tured as a series of esca­lat­ing sub-scenes. Nat­u­ral­ly, the prac­ti­cal stunt work proves more adept at quick­en­ing the pulse than inces­sant slo-mo and CGI. The grav­i­ta­tion­al law-break­ing may not have aged all that well, but the sheer scale con­tin­ues to impress.

This one cer­tain­ly lives up to its name. A prime slice of Ital­ian exploita­tion from the direc­tor of Zom­bie Holo­caust, the chase scenes in Vio­lent Rome have to be seen to be believed. Seem­ing­ly shot on the hoof, tear­ing through the streets of the Ital­ian cap­i­tal at break­neck speed, the ten­sion is drawn less from the qual­i­ty of the direc­tion than a pal­pa­ble ner­vous­ness for the safe­ty of the actors.

“All the time I thought I’d get killed, that some­one might get killed,” says one stunt man of The Man from Hong Kong in the 2008 doc­u­men­tary Not Quite Hol­ly­wood. An Aus­tralian-Hong Kong co-pro­duc­tion, with fight scenes chore­o­graphed by Sam­mo Hung, the min­i­mal regard for safe­ty con­cerns is read­i­ly appar­ent in the chase sequences. The whole film is one big rough-n-tum­ble, but the final vehic­u­lar dust-up mer­its inclu­sion on this list.

One of the great low-bud­get Ital­ian crime thrillers from the 1970s, this suit­ably grim exer­cise in econ­o­my from Fer­nan­do di Leo pulls few punch­es in its bonkers car chase. All sweaty close-ups and pedes­tri­an casu­al­ties, it peaks with an in-flight punch-up through a van wind­shield as small-time pimp Mario Adorf clings to the front. Pulp fic­tion at its finest.

Lack­ing the exis­ten­tial pose of either Van­ish­ing Point or the more woozi­ly heady Two-Lane Black­top, Dirty Mary Crazy Lar­ry stum­bles towards cap­tur­ing some kind of mean­ing from its nihilis­tic wipe­out of an end­ing. Rough­ly hewn – for bet­ter and worse – it may not be quite as deserv­ing of its icon­ic posi­tion in the annals of the road movie, giv­en its inabil­i­ty to take much of a posi­tion on any­thing beyond Peter Fonda’s ​“All you got­ta be is will­ing to take it to the max.” Still, it wears its fend­er-bend­ing cre­den­tials well, not least in the final heli­copter chase.

Unable able to squeeze an orig­i­nal-beat­ing chase into his sequel to The French Con­nec­tion, John Franken­heimer attempt­ed to go one bet­ter on the streets of Paris some two decades lat­er. It’s a valiant effort (in an oth­er­wise lack­lus­tre film) that ben­e­fits from expan­sive access to the city streets. If the inte­ri­or shots don’t entire­ly meld with the stunt-dri­ving, the low-angle vehi­cle POVs pro­vide an exhil­a­rat­ing sense of pace.

A year after Michelan­ge­lo Anto­nioni blew the ​’60s to hell with Zabriskie Point, Bar­ry New­man drove a white Dodge Chal­lenger through its dying embers in Van­ish­ing Point. Vaunt­ing its alle­gor­i­cal cre­den­tials more aggres­sive­ly than Monte Hell­man had in the supe­ri­or Two-Lane Black­top, its zen-like approach to the open road finds greater suc­cess when it shuts up and dri­ves than in any inci­den­tal inter­rup­tions. Still, when the chase is on…

One could spend days trawl­ing through the ranks of Ital­ian exploita­tion cin­e­ma, unearthing car chas­es that put their Amer­i­can coun­ter­parts to shame. This doozy sees a Mus­tang and a Buick take to the streets of Ottawa for a bal­let­ic demo­li­tion der­by. The film itself is stan­dard poliziot­ti fare, ele­vat­ed by this late sequence, as the motors chase and dance, smash into each oth­er and soar impos­si­bly through the air (and a train).

Clear­ly an inspi­ra­tion for Ronin’s Paris-set chase, this nine-minute gonzo short from Claude Lelouch may not be a chase per se, but remains every bit the cin­e­mat­ic petrol­head spec­ta­cle. Shot at 5.30am in a sin­gle take, Lelouch careers through the streets of Paris. He lat­er con­fessed to the car being his own Mer­cedes, over-dubbed with the sound of a Ferrari’s engine. Who cares? It’s pure, kinet­ic cinema.

Dad Movie 101 per­haps, but Bul­litt is a pret­ty dull affair. At least there’s the chase – one of the most icon­ic in cin­e­ma his­to­ry. San Francisco’s sin­gu­lar topog­ra­phy plays a big part, as does Lalo Schifrin’s stun­ner of a score, notable in its absence from the first screech of tyres. The com­man­deer­ing of vast swathes of the city lends scale, while Steve McQueen’s shared duties behind the wheel of the Mus­tang ensure suit­ably ener­gised interiors.

While the tit­u­lar job refers to the Great Train Rob­bery, it’s the open­ing gam­bit of Peter Yates’ superla­tive British gang­ster flick that con­cerns us here. A jew­ellery heist goes to plan until spot­ted by the cop­pers, result­ing in a hurtling chase through the streets of ​’60s Lon­don. Shot by Dou­glas Slo­combe, it’s one of the great Lon­don chase scenes, and led direct­ly to Yates being tapped by Steve McQueen for Bul­litt the fol­low­ing year. The chase here is every bit as good, the film itself miles better.

In Justin Lin the Fast and the Furi­ous series final­ly found a direc­tor capa­ble of deliv­er­ing the set-pieces it need­ed. The vault rob­bery that clos­es Fast Five is every bit as OTT as his cast’s line-deliv­ery, his direc­tion every bit as pneu­mat­i­cal­ly mus­cu­lar. Scale and excess are matched by a wit and spa­cial clar­i­ty miss­ing from oth­er fran­chise entries, its sense of esca­la­tion embrac­ing the ridicu­lous with both seri­ous­ness and out­right glee.

Even with­out the close-quar­ters smack­down at the cen­tre of Gareth Evans’ ultra-vio­lent road rage set-piece, the stunt work alone puts The Raid 2 in the top half of our list; his team as quick with a hand­brake turn as with flur­ried fists. Par for the course, the scene’s in thrall to Evans’ blood­thirsty wit – that machine gun to the face! – but it’s his cov­er­age of Iko Uwais’ bat­tle with four goons in the back­seat of the lead vehi­cle that seals the deal.

“It’s 106 miles to Chica­go, we’ve got a full tank of gas, half a pac of cig­a­rettes, it’s dark and we’re wear­ing sun­glass­es.” Like much else in the film, the extend­ed chase at the end of The Blues Broth­ers serves up a smörgås­bord of silli­ness and excess. A demo­li­tion der­by of epic pro­por­tions that sees the police, the army, a coun­try music group and a bunch of Nazis on the broth­ers’ tail. More than a hun­dred cars were wrecked at speeds of up to 120mph. Near untouch­able for sheer friv­o­li­ty of scale.

Okay, so tech­ni­cal­ly anoth­er non-car chase… Buster Keaton hitch­es a ride on the front of a bike, speed­ing through ​’20s Los Ange­les. Not notic­ing the cop behind him has been knocked off, he careers through a series of near-miss­es. The esca­la­tion of obsta­cles in his path is mag­nif­i­cent, the tim­ing of the sight-gags every bit the mark of a per­fec­tion­ist. Stun­ning­ly exe­cut­ed, and not even the best sequence in the film.

For a direc­tor ever-will­ing to trans­pose his gob­bi­ness to the screen, Death Proof pro­vid­ed Quentin Taran­ti­no with his best oppor­tu­ni­ty to date to exer­cise his con­sid­er­able action chops. His best or his worst film, depend­ing who you ask (we’re in the for­mer camp) there’s no escap­ing his unload­ing a lifetime’s appetite for genre fare into the film’s aston­ish­ing set-pieces. The cli­mac­tic chase is as good as any­thing he’s done. Period.

William Fried­kin made a pret­ty con­vinc­ing bid to out-do him­self 14 years after The French Con­nec­tion. Much like his ear­li­er tri­umph, it’s the atten­tion and con­nec­tion to char­ac­ter with­in the sequence that ele­vates it above so many of its peers. It also helps that it’s so mag­nif­i­cent­ly con­struct­ed, cli­max­ing with a head­long plum­met into oncom­ing traf­fic. It’s one of the quin­tes­sen­tial LA chas­es, mak­ing use of the city’s wide-open spaces almost as bril­liant­ly as its pre­de­ces­sor did the claus­tro­pho­bic inten­si­ty of the NY streets.

A decade ear­li­er, in some­thing resem­bling a transat­lantic cul­tur­al-exchange pro­gramme, Jean-Pierre Melville import­ed Howard Hawks’ val­ue-sys­tem for a series of cool­er-than-thou genre dis­til­la­tions. With The Dri­ver, direc­tor Wal­ter Hill made a bid for repa­tri­a­tion, stream­lin­ing com­po­nents to their mer­est essence. The result would prove huge­ly influ­en­tial, not least on Heat and Dri­ve. The stunt-dri­ving is peer­less (see the garage sequence); the open­ing and clos­ing chas­es all-timers.

For­go­ing the inessen­tials to craft a call­ing-card of sheer direc­to­r­i­al prowess, a 25-year-old Steven Spiel­berg deliv­ered a debut that was all about the chase. It’s an appren­tice­ship dis­tilled, one of the great chase films, per­haps the great­est TV movie – Hitch­cock­ian in both con­cept an exe­cu­tion. The end­ing roars, but per­haps it’s the rail­road cross­ing sequence that demon­strates the wunderkind’s imme­di­ate mas­tery of montage.

When Howard Hawks sug­gest­ed that William Fried­kin ​“make a good chase, make one bet­ter than anyone’s done,” Fried­kin duly oblig­ed. The bril­liance of the Brook­lyn sequence, under the ele­vat­ed rail­way, lies as much in Gene Hackman’s furi­ous per­for­mance as the mechan­ics of the chase itself. Shot over five weeks, with­out all the nec­es­sary per­mits in place (some of the near-miss­es cap­tured were unplanned), it’s a tour de force very few have bettered.

Roy Schei­der may not have been involved in The French Connection’s cel­e­brat­ed chase, but he got a chance to go one bet­ter a cou­ple of years lat­er. The sole direct­ing cred­it for the pro­duc­er of both The French Con­nec­tion and Bul­litt, Scheider’s chase is one for the ages. A 10-minute pur­suit through the streets of New York is thrilling­ly exe­cut­ed, but the best is saved for last – an out-of-nowhere gut-punch appar­ent­ly mod­elled on Jayne Mansfield’s fatal crash.

The ped­al-to-the-met­al assault on Moscow at the end of The Bourne Suprema­cy shows Paul Green­grass’ much-imi­tat­ed approach to action at its most per­sua­sive. It also deliv­ers on every­thing we want from a top-tier car chase, from exten­sive city-access to nar­ra­tive stake-rais­ing. Bril­liant for its kinet­ic direc­tion, stunt-dri­ving, edit­ing and pho­tog­ra­phy (shout-out to series DoP Oliv­er Wood). The sequels couldn’t hope to top it. They didn’t.

As mas­ter­class­es in the chase go, you can real­ly take your pick from those in Mad Max 2. It’s imme­di­ate­ly clear that direc­tor George Miller under­stands, not just the val­ue of prac­ti­cal effects – and of not cheat­ing in the cut – but of his entire team, from stunt-play­er to edi­tor. If we have to choose one, then the assault on the tanker is as good as any. And to think he’d go one bet­ter some two-and-a-half decades later…

There are count­less sequences in James Cameron’s fil­mog­ra­phy one can turn to when look­ing for mas­ter­ful action direc­tion, but the viaduct chase sequence in T2 still takes some beat­ing. Encom­pass­ing mul­ti­ple ele­ments and points of view, it’s a mod­el of clar­i­ty and esca­la­tion. The below video essay by Shot by Shot’s Anto­nios Papan­to­niou offers an incred­i­ble break­down of its con­stituent parts, demon­strat­ing the com­plex­i­ty and pre­ci­sion of mon­tage that allows it to seam­less­ly thrill in the moment.

The only film­mak­er on our list to die in pur­suit of the per­fect car chase, HB Hal­ic­ki served up one of the most expan­sive exam­ples with a sequence last­ing near­ly 45 min­utes. It was the sequel to Gone in 60 Sec­onds, 1982’s The Junkman, that took his life, but his 1974 effort stands as one of the great­est pur­suits ever com­mit­ted to cel­lu­loid. A car thief is tasked with steal­ing 48 vehi­cles, the last – a 1973 Mus­tang named Eleanor – being the one that sets every­thing in motion. As unadul­ter­at­ed rub­ber-burn­ers go, it’s almost peer­less. We’d put it at num­ber one, but…

At once stripped back and deliri­ous­ly overblown, the car chase finds its apoth­e­o­sis in George Miller’s 2015 fran­chise jump-starter. A junk­yard franken­stein of influ­ences that seems to encom­pass and embody the entire his­to­ry of the chase, shot through with a man­ic fuel-injec­tion of Chuck Jones luna­cy, Fury Road stacks its wit and inven­tion with reck­less­ly break­neck aban­don. It’s the gold stan­dard in auto-based action direc­tion; select­ing a sin­gle set-piece is a fool’s errand when all are so cohe­sive­ly part of the whole. It doesn’t get any bet­ter than this.

What’s your all-time favourite car chase scene? Let us know @LWLies