My Top 10 favorite Car Chases

         The most dangerous, exhilarating and all around greatest form of action (in my opinion) is the car chase. Seeing Vehicles get destroyed, the sound of screeching tires, amazing stunt work, high speed maneuvering and draying the viewer into an experience that’s simply exhilarating. Now I’m not going to lie, there are a lot of great car chases to chose from but I’m choosing the ones I enjoy the most, so sit back and buckle your seat belt, I’m counting down my 10 favorite car chases.   

10. from the movie "Death Proof"

    This is a terrible movie but I have to give credit to this chase. It has a lot of hi-speed maneuvering and crashes but the whole reason it makes my list is the stunt work by actress Zoe Bell. She is really hanging on the hood of her car while a road bully is constantly ramming into them. No green screen, stunt doubles or whirs attached, that’s how you get a viewer excited, you’re constantly on the edge of your seat during this chases and therefore a good one to start the list.

9. From the movie "What’s up Doc."

     This was a perfect balance between thrills and laughs, seriously, it’s just epic. A bag of money is up for grabs and it’s constantly getting switched with three other bags and a lot of people are after them. The characters are always changing vehicles and there's all kinds of cool twists to common clichés, like crashing through class that happens to be on the road. Also big points for driving down stairs. It all ends with every vehicle being flung into the ocean harbor, need I say any more.      

8. from "The Bourne Identity" 

          Jason Bourne is the modern action icon that perfected modern car chases. All three of his movies feature some of the most dangerous, fast paced and all around awesome car chases. However, if I had to pick a favorite, it would have to be the Paris chase from the first movie. I mean wow, this chase nails everything including stairs, side walks, tight passage ways, side streets and no shortage of impressive stunt work.     

         

7. From the movie "Mad Max 2: The Road Warier" 

        The climax of this movie is an epic, twenty minuet long car chase, no it’s not a car chase, it’s a car battle. When protecting oil trucks, a group of desert people launch a full attack to try obtaining the oil. You really feel the situation at hand and the danger the characters are in. The cast perform some dangerous stunts both physically and with vehicles, plus with so much fighting involving cars, motorcycles and trucks you get a whole lot more then what you see in a common chase. So what’s the best way to end a cool action scene like this? Well, how about a steel truck plowing right through another truck in a head-on coalition! That’s awesome!  

6. from the movie "Tomorrow Never Dies" 

         James Bound has a huge collection of car chases to choose from, and my personal favorite is from this movie. Bound is trapped in an indoor parking lot, with armed to the teeth gunman at every corner. Fortunately for Bound, he’s got a remote control BMW equipped with spikes and missile launchers, you don't get any more awesome than that. The gunmen keep putting obstacles in his path but Bound keeps avoiding them. It’s like a video game with each level of the parking lot being a different stage and it all ends with a car sailing through the air and crashing into another building! I'm speechless every time I see it!     

     

5. from "The Matrix Reloaded" 

        This is the chase that made me love car chases and unlike any other common chase, this one takes place in a computer simulated world, allowing the writers to get away with things that we could never see in a traditional car chase. This includes two outstanding villains called the Twins, who shape shift into ghosts, agents that can take control of other people and cops thrown in for good measure, it'll make your head explode. Our hero’s shift from car chase, to motorcycle chase and then it all finishes on the face of a truck. It's every great form of car chase in one scene. Using an old airport runway, the free way was hand built for this scene alone because no real freeway was available, that alone puts this on my list. Plus, with an electrifying musicale score that's bound to get you pumped and plenty of impressive visual effects that blend with real vehicles and stunts, this car chase is easy to thrill.      

4. from the movie "Rat Race" 

       85% of the entire movie is a chase, and featuring one of my all time favorite scenes in a comedy. Two brothers go chasing after a hardware guy and are persistent to get there stolen key back. What follows is the craziest chase ever. A cop is after them, the hardware guy steels a hot air balloon, one brother gets stuck on the hood of the car while no one is driving and the other brother is running on foot and they get cot in a herd of cows, one cow get’s hosted in the air and crashes into a buss full of “I love Lucy” fans (Dont' ask), the brother on the hood is launched into a lack, leaving the other brother in a fist fight with the hardware guy, while there both hanging on a rope that’s 50 feet in the air! Damn, what an awesome scene!   

3. from "The Dark Knight" 

        Now a day’s car chases use too much CG and they lose the realism they used to have but then this outstanding chase comes in to remind you what an awesome chase is all about. The bat mobile is destroyed and Batman continues on an awesome new bat pod and yes, he really is driving through a real shopping mall with no green screen and is performing some awesome and dangerous stunts. The chase is also shot very well, with perfect wide shoots and close-ups. As usual, we get an awesome ending of Batman driving under a truck that he flips over! That’s just cool!  

2. from the movie "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" 

          All I can say is that it’s one of the coolest action scenes from the past 10 years. John Connor is on the run from the TX assassin who has also taken over other vehicles. Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger performs the most dangerous and awesome stunt I’ve ever seen, hanging on to the end of a crane and crashing into oncoming vehicles and buildings, what a spectacle. More things get destroyed in this scene alone than in “Twister’s” full run time, and I don’t just mean little cars, I mean huge trucks getting wrecked left and right. Plus buildings, neighborhoods, roads, it’s just one big feast for the eyes. 


Before I revile my number one favorite, here are some honorable mentions: The Car chases featured in.....     

"I’ Robot", 
"The Man with the Golden Gun" 
"Bullet" 
"The Italian Job" (1969)
"It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World"

1. from the movie "The Blues Brothers" 

         I’ve never seen so much jaw dropping destruction in a car chase, in fact a total of 70 stunt cars were destroyed during the making of the scene, now that's saying something. The opening features an awesome chase in a shopping mall but the real chase comes at the climax of the film. An army of cops, solders, cowboys and angry girl friends are all after two people in one little car, from there we get the biggest car pileups and all out road destruction you’ve ever seen. One car is dropped from a mile high and another car goes sailing through a truck, it’s just too good to be real! Again, there’s no CGI here, you see real vehicles get wrecked and destroyed. Best car chase says nothing, this is one of the most mind blowing scenes ever committed to film.

                Drive safe everyone!