Best Movie Car Chases! Ronin, To Live And Die In L.A., Bullitt

All three of these are magnificent -- car chases at their finest. They'll never do another one, because computer-enhanced stuff has taken over. They will never again risk the lives of stunt men, let alone stars, in an orchestrated car chase. When you watch these, bear in mind that these are real people driving these cars (Steve McQueen did a lot of his own driving in the Bullitt clip.) The Ronin clip jumps straight into the action, but the other two seem kind of slow-moving and unexceptional at first. Keep watching!

#1: Ronin. This is a marvellous clip -- the best car chase ever. You can't help but think of Princess Diana's death during the amazing high-speed Paris tunnel scenes. Imagine this mix including a drunken Henri Paul piloting a heavy Mercedes sedan at 130 mph! Unfortunately, it's recorded at a low volume level -- roaring motors and screaming tires are muted. Use the volume control on the screen to jack it up, but it's still not high enough. Headphones help. And let's hope that wonderful beautiful double-clutching cop-ramming wrong-way-driving blonde lady lives!

This scene from John Frankenheimer's post-Cold War action thriller "Ronin" has everything you want in a chase: wild action, precision driving, filmmaking chops and an overpowering sense of physical reality. Frankenheimer was adamant about that last part: A classic-car buff and race car driver throughout most of his life, he said he directed "Ronin" mainly to have an excuse to shoot a bunch of thrillingly ridiculous but physically believable car chases with a bit of plot sandwiched in between. (The script -- written by J.D. Zeik and rewritten by an uncredited David Mamet -- is much better than it needed to be.) Although the cuts are super-fast, you always get a clear sense of action and reaction: Just before Natascha McElhone's Deirdre makes an evasive skid, for instance, you see a quick close-up of her shifting into neutral and yanking up the parking brake. Throughout this sequence, you get the sense that Frankenheimer is consciously trying to invoke and outdo classic chase scenes from earlier movies (particularly "Bullitt," "The French Connection" and "To Live and Die in L.A."). Amazingly, he pulls it off. This might be the last classically directed analog chase scene in big-budget Hollywood movies. Frankenheimer amped up the sense of fear by towing the actors at speeds matching that of the drivers in their stunt cars. In a couple of shots, you can see the fear in the stars' eyes, and there's one closeup where you can practically hear Robert De Niro thinking, "What the f--- did I get myself into?"

#2: To Live And Die In L.A.

"There's a minor tie-up on the North Long Beach, right near Henry Ford ..."

"WHAT'RE WE GONNA DO?" (John Pankow, anguish pumped up to the max.)

"We're going to an auto parts store, get a new window." (Petersen is the coolest guy who ever lived.)

I love this one because it's one of William Petersen's early movies -- and I think William Petersen was terribly underrated until CSI -- and because of the Wang Chung soundtrack. It starts with two rogue cops who think they've gotten away with something -- well, the Petersen character thought so; the John Pankow character is unconvinced -- and then all of a sudden they're being pursued and everyone on the sidelines is shooting at them. I particularly like the semi that jack-knifes on a crowded freeway.

The cuts that seem not to make any sense are from Petersen's character bungie-jumping off an L.A. bridge at the start of the movie.

Director William Friedkin's enthusiastically scuzzy 1985 thriller builds toward the most nerve-racking car chase in movies. FBI agents Chance (William L. Petersen) and Vukovich (John Pankow) are fleeing the disastrous shakedown of a stolen-jewelry dealer who turned out to be an FBI agent and eventually shake their pursuers by deliberately driving the wrong way on the Terminal Island Freeway near Wilmington, Calif. This is one of the great analog-era chase scenes. The fact that all the cars, people and locations are real adds immeasurably to the sense of imminent harm. Friedkin supposedly got the idea for a chase sequence going the wrong way on a freeway back in 1963, when he was returning home from a wedding in Chicago, fell asleep at the wheel, and awoke to find himself driving against traffic. He put this sequence in "L.A." partly because he'd spent the previous 14 years wondering if it was possible to top the chase he directed in "The French Connection." Mission accomplished.

#3: Bullitt: One of the best sequences ever shot. It opens with a shot of a lethal-looking black Dodge Charger. I love the double-take the bad guy does when he sees McQueen's Mustang pop up in his rear-view mirror. We already know the trench-coat guy in the passenger seat to be a hitman, and when the driver fastens his seatbelt, hang on!

That's Alcatraz in the Bay in one of the scenes, but who's watching the scenery?

I have some minor quibbles about reality. McQueen's Mustang would have been more nimble in the city, but on the highway, I think the Charger would have blown him away.

The car chase that started the 1970s car-chase craze, the high point of "Bullitt" still thrills -- a long, meticulously choreographed chase that pays close attention traffic patterns and the mentality of drivers. If you've never seen it before, you may be struck by the fact that the whole thing isn't relentlessly fast; there's a lot of cat-and-mouse action, with pursuers and pursued stalking through San Francisco's hilly streets like wild animals in the jungle, figuring out their next move.

Here's a comment on howstuffworks:

For three and a half minutes, Bullitt's Highland Green 1968 Ford Mustang GT 390 fastback tags behind the big Dodge. While paused at a light the Charger's driver fastens his lap belt with sober deliberateness. The light flips, the driver stands on the Dodge's accelerator, and two celebrated American muscle cars show what they're made of. The chase -- seven glorious minutes' worth -- is on.

Two identical Mustangs and two matching Chargers were used in the Bullitt chase sequence. So that the four-speed Mustang could run more easily with the brawnier four-speed 440 Magnum Charger, Hollywood engineer Max Balchowsky installed a racing cam on both Fords, milled the heads, and modified the ignition and carburetion systems. Additionally, Balchowsky bulked up the suspensions of all four cars for improved strength, handling, and control. One Mustang and one Charger were fitted with a full roll cage.

The chase was shot at normal film speed; there would be no cranked-up footage to jazz audiences. The byword was reality.

Steve McQueen played San Francisco police Lt. Frank Bullitt, a man on a mission to take down the hit men who killed a government witness.

Bullitt captures legendary star McQueen at the apex of his popularity and puts him in a milieu he loved in his private life: auto racing. He owned many fast cars and had particular fondness for his barely streetable XKSS Jaguar, which he liked to pilot at breakneck speeds along Sunset and serpentine Mulholland Drive high above Los Angeles. He participated in Sports Car Club of America events, and was an enthusiastic motorcyclist, as well.

McQueen insisted on driving the Mustang during the carefully choreographed pursuit, but when he failed to make a turn after locking up his wheels he sealed the deal for pro driver Bud Ekins, who handled the Mustang during the jouncy maneuvers along San Francisco's famously hilly streets. Stunt driver/actor Bill Hickman piloted the Charger.

Veteran stunt coordinator Carey Loftin designed the chase, plotting a course along a variety of city avenues and landmarks: Clay & Taylor streets, York Street, Potrero Hill, Kansas Street, Russian Hill, and the bucolic Guadalupe Canyon Parkway. Longtime SF residents will see that the chase is not linear, i.e., the cars jump freely around town from cut to cut. Well, chalk that up to artistic license.

The sounds emitted by the Mustang suggest a lot of double-clutching -- something that would not have been needed with a '68 Ford transmission. McQueen confirmed that the sweet racket of the car's engine and transmission were overdubbed recordings of a Ford GT40 driven at full tilt.

The highest compliment one can offer to Loftin and director Peter Yates is that the chase is completely believable. No "superhero" stunts, no impossible tricks -- just adrenaline-pumping speed, heightened by razor sharp cinematography (William Fraker) and Oscar-winning editing (Frank Keller), plus multiple points of view: drivers' eye, worm's eye, bird's eye, over the shoulder, close on McQueen and Hickman, and setups that suck us along inches behind the cars' back bumpers. Pat Houstis drove the camera car, which was built atop a Corvette chassis.

Dramatically, the chase works for a multitude of reasons, not least the human silence: neither Bullitt nor the hit men speak, not one syllable -- not when Bullitt's Mustang is momentarily blocked by oncoming traffic, not when the Charger nearly annihilates itself on a guardrail, not when assassin #2 (Paul Genge) loads his Winchester pump and pokes the barrel from the Charger's rear side window -- not even when Bullitt's windshield absorbs a blast of buckshot.

Instead, the soundtrack vibrates with the Charger's thrumming baritone and the hornet-like growl of the Mustang; the squeal of abused rubber; the deep, thudding thumps as the cars repeatedly bottom out on the city's hills; and the harsh reports of the Winchester. The mute concentration of the participants seems to underscore the chilly professionalism of Bullitt and the men he hunts. Deadly pursuit and flight, like rail-splitting or high-iron work, are masculine occupations best performed in silence.

The sequence did wonders for the Mustang mythos, of course, and didn't do Charger any harm, either. Ford offered a limited edition anniversary "Bullitt" Mustang for model-year 2001.

The chase altered the tone of cop films and upped the ante for writers and directors who felt obliged to attempt to surpass it. Some gems came later, notably in The French Connection and The Seven-Ups (both by Bill Hickman). Although the Bullitt chase is no longer the most kinetic in movie history, it almost certainly is still the best.