10 Best Car Chases in Movie History: Does Wanted Make the List?

Angelina Jolie and Wanted are about to hit the multiplex in top gear, with all the frenetic, adrenaline-soaked celluloid that it takes to make a gearhead action movie these days. It’s an Office Space-meets-The Matrix-slams-into-The Evil Dead tale, with nihilistic instant messaging embedded in linens. And all that breaking the laws of physics stuff aside, there’s one scene amidst the layers of blood and gibberish that could well be the first classic movie car chase of the 21st century. A Dodge Viper spinning at 75 mpg mph, Jolie clutching to it as she fires large-caliber weapons, the supercar literally driving off the side of an out-of-control bus—is this the stuff of Steve McQueen territory?

Ever since the automobile and movie businesses were born alongside each other in the 1890s, car chases have been putting the motion in motion pictures. But the last 40 years in particular—since the 1968 premiere of Bullitt, starring McQueen as a Mustang-wielding San Francisco cop—have been particularly fruitful in developing the art of on-screen motorized mayhem. Cameras have grown smaller, which means they can be mounted in places where the sense of speed is maximized. Stunt performers have grown bolder as safety advances allow them to simulate more and more dangerous antics. Physical effects have grown more sophisticated so that cars can be destroyed in ever more spectacular ways. Finally, digital imaging allows filmmakers to wipe away evidence of rigging, which has heightened the excitement even more.

The luster of Kazakhstan-born director Timur Bekmambetov's whiz-bang chase in Wanted is its giddy absurdity. We liked the movie, but how does this new crash-and-burn scene rate among the greatest car chases in Hollywood history? It was a close call—one of much debate these last few weeks at Popular Mechanics—but Jolie and Co. couldn’t quite crack our top 10. Read on for exactly why (with videos of each scene), then leave your other faves in the comments section below. ...

(Image Courtesy of Ventura Distribution)

This is not the other Angelina Jolie movie you’re thinking of, it’s a classic. And there’s no defending producer-director-star-chief stunt driver H.B. Halicki’s original Gone in 60 Seconds as a good movie. The story is disjointed and random, the dialog could have been written by a 4-year-old, every frame of film looks overexposed and the acting isn’t even good enough to qualify as wooden. But it does feature a 40-minute chase in which, Halicki was proud to brag, almost 100 cars were wrecked. It’s the sort of film we all dream of making while we’re stuck in junior high school study hall, but it took real-life junkyard owner Halicki to make it. Tragically, Halicki was killed in 1989 while filming the sequel in a stunt gone wrong.