The Hollywood Saloon, a film podcast that I listen to far less often than I should (mainly because their episodes tend to run over two hours) recently put out an episode dedicated entirely to car chases inspired by the amazing, breathtaking, pitstain-creating chase sequence from Death Proof.

I’ve set up my Netflix queue and I’ll be following along with their recommendations. Here’s what I’m looking at:

1) Bullitt (1968)
2-5) Duel (1971), Vanishing Point (1971), Smokey and the Bandit (1977), Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (1974)- these are not included in their definitive list because they are entire movies about the chase scene. Their criteria was that the chase scene be exactly that, a scene. I have not seen any of these movies and since both Vanishing Point and Dirty Mary Crazy Larry were mentioned in Death Proof, I’ll be including them.
6) The French Connection (1971) - I’ve seen it, but I think I’ll watch it again because I don’t think I was in the right mindset for it. I ended up not very impressed. Hopefully this will be corrected.
7) The Seven-Ups (1973)- never even heard of this one
8) Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)
9) The Driver (1978)
10) Blues Brothers - of course I’ve seen it. Won’t mind seeing it again.
11-12) Mad Max & Mad Max: The Road Warrior - Seen both, won’t mind seeing them again.
13) To Live and Die in LA (1985)
14) Running Scared (1986)
15) Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995)
16) Ronin - rented this and fell asleep within the first 10 minutes. I’ll give it another try.

Notes:
-Short Time (1990) is unavailable on Netflix.
-The Italian Job (1969) is mentioned. I saw this very recently and don’t feel the need to watch it again. They note correctly that, although the setpieces are great, there’s no real jeopardy to the chase.
-In a darker time in my life, I saw The Rock (1996) in theaters. I don’t think I can do it again.
-Matrix Reloaded (2003). I hated The Matrix (1999) so much that unless someone tells me the car chase is so amazing it’s worth the pain and suffering, I’ll take a pass on this one.
-Bad Boys II (2003) - maybe I’m more forgiving of old, bad movies but I don’t think I can make it through this either.
-The Bourne Identity (2002) and The Bourne Supremacy - I’ve seen both very recently.
-I’m undecided about the order in which I’ll be watching these, but I’m leaning toward the chronological order that these were presented in the podcast. I’ll obviously have to rearrange the list to account for the asides that are included.