Once again, I'm mixing it up for Friday's Fun Thread. Today's Top Ten list is the top ten greatest chases ever filmed. Some are so over-the-top they couldn't miss the list; others are so iconic that they have defined - or started - the genre.
With that said, here's the Top Ten Greatest Chases:
1. Bullitt. Steve McQueen. Ford Mustang. 'Nuff said.
2. The Blues Brothers. "Lots of space in this mall."
3. Short Time. Just watch, it's pretty cool, in a 1980s generic cop-flick kind of way.
4. The French Connection. A very young Gene Hackman chases a train.
5. To Live & Die in LA. Crown Vic. Caprice. Train. AR. Wrong way. This one's got everything.
6. Smokey & the Bandit. East bound & down, loaded up and truckin'... Plus Burt Reynolds' mustache.
7. The Italian Job. Mini Coopers painted in red, white and blue, driving down stairs, through the subway, and on top of buildings. Magnifico!
8. Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indiana Jones in all his Nazi-punching glory.
9. Ben Hur. Charleton Heston. C'mon!
10. The Duel. Okay, so the entire movie was a chase. Doesn't that make it cooler?
So there's my list of my Top Ten favorite chase scenes. I'm certain that there are many that I have omitted, mostly through ignorance of current movies.
What chases (or crashes) would be on your list?
That is all.
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22 comments:
What, no love for Frankenheimer's Ronin? That will surely be the last great live-action chase sequence.
Come to think of it: I couldn't do what you have accomplished here. By the time I got done adding various James Bond exploits, I'd be asking folks to sit through my Top 20.
There's a chase scene in Ben Hur? Oh, you mean the chariot race?
How bout Gone in 60 Seconds (the re-make with Nicholas Cage) Awesome chase scene with Eleanor.
Ronin was my first thought too.
But after seeing that Short Time clip - which I had never even heard of - I would love to meet the guy who built those chase cars. Those things were tanks.
Ronin has got to be on that list ..
Jay, how can you leave off The Dead Pool? Harry Callahan being chased through San Francisco by an R/C carbomb. That is possibly the single most awesome chase sequence of all time.
Ronin was my first thought too. Love that movie.
The Gumball Rally movie from 1976. Imagine an AC Cobra 427 chasing a Ferarri Daytona at night through the mountains. Engine PR0N.
The 7-Ups. See it.
Running Scared. Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines in a cab (with a nun and a priest in the back seat and the meter running) chasing Jimmy Smits, in a limo, on the el in Chicago. Bantering back and forth hilariously the entire time.
Made of win.
As long as we're allowing entire movies as chase scenes Then Le Mans with McQueen and Vanishing Point need to be on the list.
... of course then there's "C'etait un Rendezvous"
( look for it )
Damn, no Ronin, and no Vanishing Point! Vanishing Point was basically one long chase scene.
Every Bourne movie. Enough said.
That's a good list.
Dirty Mary Crazy Larry was one long pretty good chase scene with part of it in a bad Mopar from when that meant something.
I might have included The Chase with Charlie Sheen if only because he did Kristy Swanson during it. That has to be worth bonus points.
I'm surprised you didn't include at least one episode of Catch That Pigeon or The Perils of Penelope Pitstop.
Lethal Weapon 4 had a good one.
The 1st "Gone in 60 Seconds". I mostly remember the ending, but then I did see it at the Benjies Drive-In, so seeing the movie was low on the priority list.
Benjies Drive-In, the passion pit for all of Middle River. It's still open, I just went and searched. Here's the facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/bengies
What great memories....
Were we talking about cars?
The first two Mad Max movies...I mean, DUH, y'all!!
You could do a whole post just on Bond chases.
Yeah, the one in Goldeneye with the tank, through St. Petersburg! Amazing!
Also, the one in the Pink Panther where you just sit in one spot and everyone else (dressed in weird costumes) just flies past, back and forth.
How about Vanishing Point (original)? Whole freakin movie was a chase (ok, except for the nude chick on the bike).
What? The original, 1974, "Gone in Sixty Seconds" doesn't rate? Over half the film was "the chase scene" only "The Brothers" wrecked more cars.
Every shot was filmed "at speed", including the opening sequence where H.B. Halicki, pilots a new 1974 Cadillac down an old state road, faster then any sane person would ever. Camera cuts to speedo, buried. Cut to outside shot; judging by the way the land yacht is barely staying contact with the pavement, yup, he's really doing 125 down a tar covered cow path in a Detroit Dinosaur.
Being a low-budget, grade-B movie, none of the stunt cars got race up-grades for performance. It really gave you an appreciation for how poorly these old cars actually handled.
The Brothers to and through Chicago had it over the mall scenes IMHO. Always liked how the junk on the dash slides around while rolling along Lower Whacker Drive.
The first Transporter is a car driver film with a good opener. Not genre defining, but it made me want a BMW 7 series at the time. Bourne and Bond films mostly fall in this "nice execution" category too, I suppose.
I'll have to watch Ronin again. I remember it being good not great, but sounds like it deserves another viewing.
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