framethrowerSign up for free

Best Motorcycle Movies

Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of motorcycle cinema — measured across 1,791 indexed frames from 26 films, against a 408,752-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.

Motorcycle films over-index on motorcycle, helmet and leather jacket — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.

  1. 1

    Mad Max (1979)

    George MillerDP David EggbyIMDb 6.8TMDB 6.7See in full on FrameThrower →

    Taking place in a dystopian Australia in the near future, Mad Max tells the story of a highway patrolman cruising the squalid back roads that have become the breeding ground of criminals foraging for gasoline and scraps. After some grisly events at the hands of a motorcycle gang, Max sets out across the barren wastelands in search of revenge.

  2. 2

    The Bikeriders (2023)

    Jeff NicholsDP Adam StoneIMDb 6.6TMDB 6.7See in full on FrameThrower →

    After a chance encounter, headstrong Kathy is drawn to Benny, member of Midwestern motorcycle club the Vandals. As the club transforms into a dangerous underworld of violence, Benny must choose between Kathy and his loyalty to the club.

  3. 3

    The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)

    Walter SallesDP Éric GautierIMDb 7.7TMDB 7.4See in full on FrameThrower →

    In 1952, twenty-three year old medical student Ernesto Guevara de la Serna - Fuser to his friends and later better known as 'Ernesto Che Guevara' - one semester away from graduation, decides to postpone his last semester to accompany his twenty-nine year old biochemist friend 'Alberto Granado' - Mial to his friends - on his four month, 8,000 km long dream motorcycle trip throughout South America starting from their home in Buenos Aires. Their quest is to see things they've only read about in books about the continent on which they live, and to finish that quest on Alberto's thirtieth birthday on the other side of the continent in the Guajira Peninsula in Venezuela. Not all on this trip goes according to their rough plan due to a broken down motorbike, a continual lack of money (they often stretching the truth to gain the favor of a variety of strangers to help them), arguments between the two in their frequent isolation solely with each other, their raging libidos which sometimes get them into trouble, and dealing with Fuser's chronic asthma. But a chance encounter with a couple of Communists in the Chilean desert and an extended visit to the San Pablo Leper Colony in the Perúvian Amazon Basin among other things profoundly affects what each will want to do with his life and the bond each has with the other.

  4. 4

    Rabid (1977)

    David CronenbergDP René VerzierIMDb 6.3TMDB 6.3See in full on FrameThrower →

    In Camelford, while swinging his van across a narrow road to make a u-turn, a driver stalls the vehicle that does not restart. Hart Read is driving his motorcycle with his girlfriend Rose and he drives off the road to avoid the collision. Hart suffers minor injuries while Rosie is injured and burned by the flames when the motorcycle explodes. The ambulance from the nearby Keloid Clinic for Plastic Surgery brings the couple and Rose, who is in coma, is submitted to an emergency surgery and to an experimental plastic-surgery technique by Dr. Dan Keloid to retrieve her skin in the chest and abdomen. Hart is discharged but Rose stays in coma in the intensive care unit (ICU) to recover. Out of the blue, Rose awakens from her coma one month later and screams. A nurse helps her but is wounded by her and then he cannot remember what has happened. He is sent to a hospital in Montreal while Rose realizes that she needs to feed with blood. However her victims become zombie-like creatures. Rose flees from the clinic to Montreal to meet her friend Mindy Kent spreading her infection in the big city. Meanwhile Hart is seeking for her.

  5. 5

    The Place Beyond The Pines (2012)

    Derek CianfranceDP Sean BobbittIMDb 7.3TMDB 7.0See in full on FrameThrower →

    A mysterious and mythical motorcycle racer, Luke, (Ryan Gosling) drives out of a traveling carnival globe of death and whizzes through the backstreets of Schenectady, New York, desperately trying to connect with a former lover, Romina, (Eva Mendes) who recently and secretly gave birth to the stunt rider's son. In an attempt to provide for his new family, Luke quits the carnival life and commits a series of bank robberies aided by his superior riding ability. The stakes rise as Luke is put on a collision course with an ambitious police officer, Avery Cross, (Bradley Cooper) looking to quickly move up the ranks in a police department riddled with corruption. The sweeping drama unfolds over fifteen years as the sins of the past haunt the present days lives of two high school boys wrestling with the legacy they've inherited. The only refuge is found in the place beyond the pines.

  6. 6

    Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)

    Christopher McQuarrieDP Rob HardyIMDb 7.7TMDB 7.4See in full on FrameThrower →

    Two years after Ethan Hunt had successfully captured Solomon Lane, the remnants of the Syndicate have reformed into another organization called the Apostles. Under the leadership of a mysterious fundamentalist known only as John Lark, the organization is planning on acquiring three plutonium cores. Ethan and his team are sent to Berlin to intercept them, but the mission fails when Ethan saves Luther and the Apostles escape with the plutonium. With CIA agent August Walker joining the team, Ethan and his allies must now find the plutonium cores before it's too late.

  7. 7

    Sherlock Jr. (1924)

    Buster KeatonDP Byron HouckIMDb 8.2TMDB 8.0See in full on FrameThrower →

    A meek and mild projectionist, who also cleans up after screenings, would like nothing better than to be a private detective. He becomes engaged to a pretty girl but a ladies man known as the Sheik vies for her affection. He gets rid of the projectionist by stealing a pocket watch belonging to the girl's father - which he pawns to buy her an expensive box of candy. He then slips the pawn ticket into the projectionist's pocket and subsequently is found by the police. He doesn't have much luck but in his dreams, he the debonair and renowned detective Sherlock Jr. who faces danger and solves the crime. In real life, the girl solves crimes quickly.

  8. 8

    The Purge: Anarchy (2014)

    James DeMonacoDP Jacques JouffretIMDb 6.4TMDB 6.6See in full on FrameThrower →

    One night per year, the government sanctions a 12-hour period in which citizens can commit any crime they wish -- including murder -- without fear of punishment or imprisonment. Leo, a sergeant who lost his son, plans a vigilante mission of revenge during the mayhem. However, instead of a death-dealing avenger, he becomes the unexpected protector of four innocent strangers who desperately need his help if they are to survive the night.

  9. 9

    Eastern Promises (2007)

    David CronenbergDP Peter SuschitzkyIMDb 7.6TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →

    THIS SUMMARY CONTAINS SPOILERS. - In London, the Russian pregnant teenager Tatiana arrives bleeding in a hospital, and the doctors save her baby only. The Russian descendant midwife Anna Khitrova finds Tatiana's diary written in Russian language in her belongings and decided to find her family to deliver the baby, she brings the diary home and ask her uncle Stepan to translate the document. Stepan refuses, but Anna finds a card of a restaurant owned by the Russian Semyon inside the diary and she visits the old man trying to find a lead to contact Tatiana's family. When she mentions the existence of the diary, Semyon immediately offers to translate the document. However, Stepan translates part of the diary and Anna discovers that Semyon and his sick son Kirill had raped Tatiana when she was fourteen years old and forced her to work as prostitute in a brothel of their own. Further, Semyon is the dangerous boss of the Russian mafia "Vory v Zakone", jeopardizing the safety of Anna and her family. Meanwhile, Semyon's driver Nikolai Luzhin gets close to Kirill and Semyon, climbing positions in the criminal organization, but he helps Anna, her family and the baby.

  10. 10

    Streets of Fire (1984)

    Walter HillDP Andrew LaszloIMDb 6.7TMDB 6.9See in full on FrameThrower →

    It is another time - Another Place - where the 1950s is mixed with the 1980s. In a city where it is always nighttime, during a concert performing live before a crowd of her fans, rock 'n' roll singer Ellen Aim is kidnapped by motorcyclist Raven Shaddock and his biker gang "The Bombers" on stage. Billy Fish, Ellen's manager, hires Ellen's ex-boyfriend and mercenary Tom Cody, who has arrived in town to visit his sister Reva, to rescue Ellen from the Bomber's nightclub, where they are holding her captive for their own amusement. Joined by ex-soldier and mechanic McCoy who is also in town looking for work, Cody and Fish set out across the rain infested streets inhabited by cops, street gangs and rock fans and into the criminal neighborhood 'The Battery', where Cody, Fish and McCoy prepare to rescue Ellen from the gang.

What motorcycle films are made of

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

  • motorcycle29.5×
  • helmet5.2×
  • leather jacket4.3×
  • asphalt road4.0×
  • road4.0×
  • utility pole2.6×
  • mountain2.4×
  • asphalt2.3×

How motorcycle films are shot

Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate motorcycle from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.

  • 86%eye levelvs 69% baseline
  • 24%widevs 20% baseline

What breaks the pattern

Possession (1981) 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 1,791 frames from 26 films carrying the motorcycle 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/motorcycle

What is FrameThrower?

Great films start with great references.

The numbers on this page come from the same index you can search directly. Every frame is tagged for lighting, lens, shot size, colour and mood — so you can find the reference you already have in your head, by describing it, by dropping in an image, or by picking a colour.

  • The largest film library in the world — searchable frame by frame
  • Search by light, colour, lens or mood — or by dropping in an image
  • Script to lookbook in an afternoon — a board for every scene, from real frames
  • Moodboards you can share on one link — your DP, designer and client see the same film
  • API and MCP access — for agentic and developer workflows
  • Free to start — no card required

A pitch trailer takes weeks of work and a budget most projects never get. The lookbook gets you there in an afternoon.

Start free — search the library7-day free trial of everything · cancel anytime

DiscoveryResearchReferencesEducation

These are real movie frames, shown at reduced resolution. All rights remain with their respective owners; they appear here for study, commentary and education under fair-use principles. How these are meant to be used