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Best Car crash Movies

Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of car crash cinema — measured across 2,195 indexed frames from 28 films, against a 408,752-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.

Car crash films over-index on asphalt, steering wheel and sunglasses — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.

  1. 1

    Duel (1971)

    Steven SpielbergDP Jack A. MartaIMDb 7.6TMDB 7.4See in full on FrameThrower →

    While traveling through the desert for an appointment with a client, the businessman David Mann from California passes a slow and old tanker truck. The psychotic truck driver feels offended and chases David along the empty highway trying to kill him.

  2. 2

    Back to the Future II (1989)

    Robert ZemeckisDP Dean CundeyIMDb 7.8TMDB 7.8See in full on FrameThrower →

    Marty and Doc are at it again as the time-traveling duo head to 2015 to nip some McFly family woes in the bud. But things go awry thanks to bully Biff Tannen and a pesky sports almanac. In a last-ditch attempt to set things straight, Marty finds himself bound for 1955 and face to face with his teenage parents -- again.

  3. 3

    Get Carter (2000)

    Stephen KayDP Mauro FioreIMDb 5.2TMDB 5.2See in full on FrameThrower →

    Years ago, Jack Carter left his Seattle home to become a Las Vegas mob casino financial enforcer. He returns for the funeral of his brother Richard "Richie" after a car crash during a storm, atypical of the careful house-father. Talking to the widow, daughter Doreen, and enigmatic Geraldine, Jack suspects it was murder. Cliff Brumby, whose club Richie ran, is financially linked to porn and prostitution baron Cyrus Paice, who claims to be just a front-man for ITC tycoon Jeremy Kinnear. Someone hired goon Thorpey to make Jack return to Las Vegas. Jack's partner Con McCarty is restless, apparently about their boss Les Fletcher, whose wife had an affair with Jack. Someone breaks into Richie's home, looking for a crucial CD.

  4. 4

    Days of Thunder (1990)

    Tony ScottDP Ward RussellIMDb 6.1TMDB 6.3See in full on FrameThrower →

    Talented but unproven stock car driver Cole Trickle gets a break and with the guidance of veteran Harry Hogge turns heads on the track. The young hotshot develops a rivalry with a fellow racer that threatens his career when the two smash their cars. But with the help of his doctor, Cole just might overcome his injuries-- and his fear.

  5. 5

    Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)

    Brad BirdDP Robert ElswitIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.1See in full on FrameThrower →

    In the fourth installment of the Mission Impossible series, Ethan Hunt and a new team race against time to track down Hendricks, a dangerous terrorist who has gained access to Russian nuclear launch codes and is planning a strike on the United States. An attempt by the team to stop him at the Kremlin ends in a disaster, with an explosion causing severe damage to the Kremlin and the IMF being implicated in the bombing, forcing the President to invoke Ghost Protocol, under which the IMF is disavowed, and will be offered no help or backup in any form. Undaunted, Ethan and his team chase Hendricks to Dubai, and from there to Mumbai, but several spectacular action sequences later, they might still be too late to stop a disaster.

  6. 6

    Final Destination 2 (2003)

    David R. EllisDP Gary CapoIMDb 6.2TMDB 6.3See in full on FrameThrower →

    Whilst heading onto the highway, Kimberly Corman has a vision of a huge car accident. Bringing the traffic to a halt, Kimberly is horrified when the accident actually happens. Kimberly links the occurrence with a similar event that occurred one year ago, on the same date that she had her premonition: the Flight 180 disaster. After speaking with Clear Rivers, the only remaining survivor of the Flight 180 disaster, Kimberly discovers that Death's pattern has been disturbed, meaning everyone who was originally supposed to die will now be killed in separate freak accidents. Kimberly and the remaining survivors must work with Clear to try and stop Death from repeating its process.

  7. 7

    Bad Boys (1995)

    Michael BayDP Howard AthertonIMDb 6.8TMDB 6.8See in full on FrameThrower →

    Marcus Burnett is a hen-pecked family man. Mike Lowry is a foot-loose and fancy free ladies' man. Both are Miami policemen, and both have 72 hours to reclaim a consignment of drugs stolen from under their station's nose. To complicate matters, in order to get the assistance of the sole witness to a murder, they have to pretend to be each other.

  8. 8

    Cop Land (1997)

    James MangoldDP Eric Alan EdwardsIMDb 7.0TMDB 6.8See in full on FrameThrower →

    Sometime in the 1970's, police officers from New York City wanted a safe haven to live, away from the dangers of the streets of New York City, this is when they established a "Cop Land" in the small New Jersey town of Garrison. Freddy Heflin who was always admired by the New York cops wanted to become one, but because he was deaf in one ear this prevents him from achieving his goal, but has become sheriff of Garrison. Recently there have been a dark omen surrounding the NYPD, and Freddy is now investigating on this case, then Internal Affairs officer Mo Tilden is also on the case and asks Freddy for help, but Freddy could not. Now Freddy suspects that a New York City cop named Ray Donlan might be one of the many cops who is corrupted by the mob and other criminals. Now, Freddy must find a cop who is nicknamed "Superboy" who can testify against Donlan and protect him, before Donlan finds Superboy and kills him.

  9. 9

    Lost Highway (1997)

    David LynchDP Peter DemingIMDb 7.6TMDB 7.5See in full on FrameThrower →

    Fred Madison, a saxophonist, is accused under mysterious circumstances of murdering his wife Renee. On death row, he inexplicably morphs into a young man named Pete Dayton, leading a completely different life. When Pete is released, his and Fred's paths begin to cross in a surreal, suspenseful web of intrigue, orchestrated by a shady gangster boss named Dick Laurent.

  10. 10

    The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

    Lana Wachowski, Lilly WachowskiDP Bill PopeIMDb 7.2TMDB 7.1See in full on FrameThrower →

    In this second adventure, Neo and the rebel leaders estimate that they have 72 hours until Zion falls under siege to the Machine Army. Only a matter of hours separates the last human enclave on Earth from 250,000 Sentinels programmed to destroy mankind. But the citizens of Zion, emboldened by Morpheus conviction that the One will fulfill the Oracles Prophecy and end the war with the Machines, rest all manner of hope and expectation on Neo, who finds himself stalled by disturbing visions as he searches for a course of action.

What car crash films are made of

How much more often each element appears in a car crash frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — asphalt is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.

  • asphalt2.8×
  • steering wheel2.5×
  • sunglasses2.2×
  • neon sign2.2×
  • leather jacket1.9×
  • plaid shirt1.7×
  • mustache1.6×
  • car1.6×

What breaks the pattern

I Love You Phillip Morris (2010) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.

Method

Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 2,195 frames from 28 films carrying the car crash label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (408,752 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.

Machine-readable: /api/list/car-crash

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