10 Great Travel Race Movies

Lists: Slow travel is well and good. But there's something irresistible about a great travel race movie. World Hum Travel Movie Clubbers Eva Holland and Eli Ellison share their favorite vicarious thrill rides.

9) Midnight Run

Disgraced ex-cop turned bounty hunter Jack Walsh (De Niro—who else?) has a simple task: to get white-collar criminal Jonathan Mardukas (straight man Charles Grodin) from New York to Los Angeles. The only things stopping him? The mob, the FBI and Mardukas himself—oh, and a tight deadline. The pair hit Amtrak, airports and everything in between, in a race that will remind you how well De Niro was doing comedy years before Ben Stiller came along.

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Eva Holland is the senior editor of World Hum. Her writing has also appeared in Reader's Digest Canada, NationalGeographic.com, the National Post, the Montreal Gazette, the Ottawa Citizen and WestJet's Up! Magazine, among other publications. She's based in Canada's Yukon territory.

Eli Ellison lives in Seal Beach, California. He was last seen being sized for a diamond “TCB” ring.


6 Comments for 10 Great Travel Race Movies

Kevin Fay 09.12.08 | 12:18 PM ET

Good stuff, guys. But you forgot “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.” Have you seen it? It’s really funny, and so, so weird.

slipstream 09.12.08 | 4:19 PM ET

Burt Reynolds is the man Smokey and the Bandit is a great race scene. I have him as the voice on my GPS that I got from Navtones.com. He often helps me escape from tricky situations now!

Eli 09.12.08 | 5:03 PM ET

Thanks, Kevin. I have seen Mad World and it was a tough call between that and Great Race. At the time, the latter just seemed to fit better, but I could go either way.

I’ll let Eva tell you all about her favorite Mad World remake: Rat Race.

Eva Holland 09.13.08 | 1:02 AM ET

Ooh, don’t even get me started on Rat Race!

It takes 2nd place in my list of All-Time Worst Movies To Be Stuck Watching On A Long Distance Bus Ride With The Sound On.

(The first was Jeepers Creepers. In Turkish.)

Sub 10.02.08 | 3:16 PM ET

Midnight run is classic!  Rat Race is fun, not the greatest movie, but it does boast 3 Oscar winners.

Torah 10.04.08 | 4:36 PM ET

Yeah, I’d like to back up Kevin and say that “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World” is missing. I’m not so sure what people have against Rat Race though; I thought it was quite humorous.

In my personal opinion, I think my favorite movie in the list is Death Race 2000.

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