Top Ten Car Movies

Top 10 car movies – in no particular order

1. Grand Prix – This movie is the most iconic racing movie about Formula One, because it is the most realistic and almost only one out there. The late John Frankenheimer directed this classic and it stands the test of time to watch it even today. Get yourself a big screen and surround sound and turn up the volume for an opening blast through Monaco.

2. Le Mans – This was Steve McQueen’s ultimate movie and he finally got to make it. The racing around Le Mans is spectacular and the scope is wide. Take a trip down the Mulsanne and feel all 200+ mph of it from the comfort of your patio set.

3. The Fast and The Furious – The first movie in the franchise is one of the better ones. From the opening scene that turned a thousand or more civics owners on to the slammed scene to the amazing wheelie in the Charger R/T this whole movie is all about the need for speed and the tuning culture and probably helped to sell a ton of Volkswagen parts.

4. The Italian Job – Unfortunately I cannot speak on the original (but I will see it one day) but the remake did feature some fun new Mini action, the canals of Venice and Charlize Theron J.

5. Gone in 60 Seconds – Another remake and not really a good movie per se, but many of the cars are interesting and it even features the rarely seen Jaguar XJ220 (though much too briefly for me). There’s no way that I would let my XJ220 get stolen if I had one, much less by Nick Cage in a motorcycle helmet.

6. Cars – Pixar strikes gold again in this great movie. There’s great comedy, timing, cars, racing and even some adventurous voice acting work from the likes of Michael Schumacher and Jeremy Clarkson. (For those who want to know, in England, Clarkson is the voice of the manager instead of Jeremy Piven.)

7. Ronin – A chase through Paris sets this thriller apart from the rest. Another John Frankenheimer movie, so you know it has a good car chase scene with real guns and not paintball guns.

8. Blues Brothers – Most people don’t think of cars when the think of the Blues Brothers, but this movie has a ton of crashed cop cars, a genius chase through a mall and a car falling off of the tallest unfinished bridge in the history of the world. A must see.

9. Tokyo Drift – Although it is another Fast and Furious movie, this one is different in the fact that it features drifting instead of just driving fast in a straight line. Hot cars in Tokyo are featured, and the drifting action is fairly realistic.

10. Initial D (TV Show) – If you are a fan of drifting, or of anime, or of Japanese cars, or of all of them, then you should like this show. And even though it is still technically a television show first, there have been two movies made of it. Be sure to find the original copies in Japanese with English subtitles because the dubbed version is no good.