10 Car Films So Dangerous Multiple Stunt Drivers Died Making Them

Before CGI. Before green screens. Before a single frame of Fast and Furious ever existed. There was carsploitation — the glorious, dangerous, gasoline-soaked era when filmmakers pointed cameras at real cars doing real things at real speed and just let it happen. Ninety-three cars destroyed in one film. A forty-minute car chase that put the director in hospital. A real motorcycle gang hired to play themselves. An emergency room doctor who bankrolled his debut feature with hospital shifts and changed action cinema forever. This countdown covers ten of the most insane, most influential, and most gloriously reckless car movies ever made — from a 1958 AIP dragstrip delinquent saga featuring King Kong's leading lady in her final role, to the film that launched Peter Weir toward Dead Poets Society via a spike-covered Volkswagen Beetle and a town that survives by murdering motorists. We've got H.B. Halicki destroying ninety-three vehicles and compacting ten vertebrae to deliver the most visceral chase sequence in cinema history. Paul Bartel cramming every New World Pictures regular he knew into one cross-country race. George Miller turning the Australian outback into the greatest post-apocalyptic landscape ever filmed — twice. And at number one, John Carpenter making a 1958 Plymouth Fury the most terrifying and compelling character in any car movie ever committed to celluloid. Buckle up. Nothing here was faked. 00:00 – Intro 02:22 – #10. Steel Arena (1973) 05:13 – #9. Dragstrip Riot (1958) 07:49 – #8. Fireball 500 (1966) 10:45 – #7. Double Nickels (1977) 13:24 – #6. Cannonball! (1976) 16:29 – #5. The Cars That Ate Paris (1974) 19:08 – #4. Gone in 60 Seconds (1974) 21:40 – #3. Mad Max (1979) 24:35 – #2. The Road Warrior (1981) 26:46 – #1. Christine (1983)