Forget Fast & Furious, there is a new car movie out that will have you craving the need for speed.
Directed by Jospeph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy, Top Gun: Maverick, Twisters), starring Brad Pitt, and heavily pushed by Apple, F1 speeds into cinemas this summer on a wave of considerable hype.
Pitt plays veteran Formula One driver Sonny Hayes, who is convinced to come out of retirement to mentor a promising British rookie (Damson Idris).
All of which sounds deeply improbable to anyone with even a passing knowledge of this most exacting of motor sports. At 61 years of age, Pitt stretches the phrase ‘veteran Formula One driver’ way beyond its useful limits.
With that said, this treatment of the world’s elite racing discipline gains a measure authenticity through its unique level of access to the sport’s movers and shakers.
All 10 real-life teams from the 2023 F1 season, as well as their drivers, will appear in the film. If you want to see Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen and co. taking on Tyler Durden himself, it could be worth heading to your local multiplex.
Whatever the outcome, F1 is following in the tire tracks of some true cinematic greats. The following list of motor sport movies features a formidable roster of Hollywood talent, and covers a surprisingly varied range of genres.
We’ve got biopics, sci-fi, kid-friendly animation, and even bawdy comedy. The one unifying note is the strong whiff of petroleum...
Days of Thunder
‘Top Gun with cars’ is a somewhat lazy summary of Days of Thunder, but also a pretty accurate one. Tom Cruise plays the hotshot (or should that be Maverick?) racing driver Cole Trickle, who takes the world of NASCAR by storm, turning a bitter rival into a friend and a female authority figure into a love interest along the way. A hit power ballad accompanied the film’s release, and it was even helmed by the late great Tony Scott. Sound familiar?
Speed Racer
This cult favourite from The Wachowskis arrived several years after they wrapped up The Matrix trilogy, but garnered considerably less attention. It’s an audacious live action treatment of the classic ‘60s anime series, in which our titular racing prodigy (played by Emile Hirsch) takes on a shady racing corporation. The film’s heavily digitised look isn’t to everyone’s taste – this was peak green screen era – but there’s no denying that its frenetic camera work and gaudy palette replicates the gonzo energy of the source material.
Death Race 2000
Who says motor racing movies need to be grounded in reality – or even time? Death Race 2000 is a gloriously schlocky slice of sci-fi nastiness, playing out like an X-rated Wacky Racers. In a grim dystopian future, a totalitarian US government runs a violent motor race across the country in a bid to keep its citizens pacified. If you ever find yourself bemoaning the lack of personalities in modern Formula One, check out this racing roster: a black-clad champion called Frankenstein (David Carradine), a Chicago gangster (Sylvester Stallone), and a neo-Nazi (Roberta Collins), among others.
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
Most of the motor racing movies on this list are pretty serious, po-faced affairs, typically involving intense young men with chiselled jaws. It’s just this macho climate that Talladega Nights sends up to brilliant effect, with Will Ferrell skewering the sport’s insular machismo as lunk-headed NASCAR racer Ricky Bobby. Over in the director’s chair is Ferrell’s old Anchor Man collaborator, Adam McKay, while the UK’s own Sacha Baron Cohen plays Gallic rival Jean Girard with outrageous flair.
Rush
Ron Howard’s crack at the motor racing movie genre is based on the true life rivalry-turned-friendship between the clinical Austrian F1 driver Nicky Lauder (Daniel Brühl) and the dashing English playboy James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) through the mid-‘70s. The film’s biographical core only makes the twists and turns of the plot all the more remarkable, with our two chalk and cheese leads emerging as the plucky underdogs of their own stories. The true stars of this movie, however, have to be the thrillingly kinetic race sequences.
Winning
Some 40 years before his final role in Cars, Newman appeared in this 1969 motor racing movie as professional race car driver Frank Capua. The off-track love triangle drama is a little soapy, but the racing sequences are deftly handled. Newman’s training for the movie was what sparked his interest in motor racing, and led to the star taking up the sport more seriously in real life. Further blurring the boundaries between fact and fiction, Newman’s wife Joanne Woodward here plays his character’s spouse, Elora Capua.
Cars
This animated Pixar classic quite literally makes the racing cars the stars of the show. There are no human drivers in this (admittedly rather strange) world of anthropomorphic vehicles. Owen Wilson voices the reckless racer Lightning McQueen, who finds himself stranded in a backwater town during a crucial point in the racing season. Fittingly enough, this was the final film role for Paul Newman – a motor racing enthusiast and participant in his younger years – who voiced the key part of Doc Hudson.
Le Mans
![Le Mans (1971) ORIGINAL TRAILER [HD 1080p] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/228f-dPxI3Q/maxresdefault.jpg)
Second only to Paul Newman in the motor racing actor stakes, Steve MacQueen leads this evocative ode to the great 24 hour endurance race. Like Grand Prix before it, the film gains an irreplaceable sense of authenticity by grafting real motor racing footage onto its dramatic scenes. While he was unable to take part in the actual race during production (for insurance reasons), McQueen performed a number of his own driving stunts for additional footage.
Ford v Ferrari
![FORD v FERRARI | Official Trailer [HD] | 20th Century FOX - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/zyYgDtY2AMY/maxresdefault.jpg)
James Mangold’s much admired 2019 biopic, aka Le Mans '66, tells the story of Ford’s remarkable efforts to overhaul Ferrari’s imperious motor racing operation during the 1960s. They do so through unorthodox means, hiring car designer Carroll Shelby and English racing driver Ken Miles to build the iconic Ford GT40 Mk I. The two racing legends are played with signature charm by Hollywood heavyweights Matt Damon and Christian Bale respectively, but just as much praise should go to the tooth-rattling racing scenes at the heart of the movie.
Grand Prix
No motor racing movie has received as much critical clout as 1966’s Grand Prix – a fictionalised recounting of that year’s Formula One season. The film won three Academy Awards for Best Sound Effects, Best Film Editing, and Best Sound, which speaks to the immersive quality of its racing scenes. John Frankenheimer’s film succeeds by folding in real racing footage in with its more dramatic fare, lending the movie an extra edge of authenticity and laying down rubber for films like Le Mans and F1.
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