10 Great Travel Race Movies

09.12.08 | 10:57 AM ET

From most recent to oldest:

10) Cars

Lightning McQueen is the most self-absorbed computer-animated, talking race car ever to grace the silver screen. But when a series of convenient circumstances pushes him off the Interstate on his way to California for the big show, McQueen is forced to reevaluate his priorities. This movie is part race against time, and part ode to the fading legacy of the legendary Route 66—and the canyonlands of the Southwest are the perfect locale for Pixar’s animation team to go to work. Can Lightning have a change of heart, save the residents of Radiator Springs and still make it to the race track on time?

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.

8) Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Anyone who’s ever been caught in the holiday travel crunch can sympathize with Neil Page (Steve Martin) and his race to get home in time for Thanksgiving. But when you throw in a flight that gets diverted to Wichita, a robbery, a train break-down—and, of course, a leech-like travel companion with disgusting habits who never stops talking (courtesy of John Candy)—that sympathy turns rapidly to laughter. Neil’s hissy fit at the rental car counter is one for the history books.

7) Smokey and the Bandit

Burt Reynolds is at his mustached best in this kitschy tale of big rigs and bootleg beer. Legendary truck driver Bo “Bandit” Darville (Reynolds) accepts a bet to try to get from Georgia to Texas and back—with 400 cases of illegal brew in his rig—in less than 48 hours. Along with sidekick “Snowman” and faithful dog, Fred, Bandit seems to have the task in hand—until a runaway bride (Sally Field) and a crazed Texas sheriff (Jackie Gleason, who nearly steals the show from Reynolds and his mustache) get in the way. Fair warning: this flick may leave you with a powerful urge to install a CB radio in your vehicle and start dropping 10-4s on anyone in range.

6) The Gumball Rally

Before Reynolds and company fouled American cinema with the “Cannonball Run” flicks, the Gumballers blew across the U.S. in the original sea-to-shining-sea road race picture. Departing New York City, a young Raul Julia breaks off his car’s rearview mirror and teaches us the first rule of Italian driving: “What’s behind me is not important.” The high-speed, home-stretch push down the L.A. riverbed puts that cheesy Grease race to shame.

5) Death Race 2000

The 21st-century U.S.A. is a bloodthirsty society ruled by a fascist. No, this is not an Iraq war documentary. Frankenstein (David Carradine), Machine Gun Joe (Sly Stallone), Matilda the Hun and a field of equally outrageous contestants race cartoonish hot rods from New York to “New Los Angeles.” You’ve seen the transcontinental road race before, but Death Race spices it up with a vicious twist. Drivers run over pedestrians to score points. Toddlers are worth 70, and mowing down a senior citizen nets a whopping 100 points! Skip the flashy remake and rent Roger Corman’s campy, pseudo-political ‘70s classic.

4) Bite The Bullet

The Western Press newspaper holds a 700-mile endurance horseback race across the badlands and sand dunes of “Nowhere U.S.A.” Among the Western archetypes gunning for the prize money are two ex-Rough Riders (Gene Hackman and James Coburn), a mouthy punk (Jan Michael Vincent) a shady cowgirl (Candice Bergen) and a broken old man (the great Ben Johnson). While the makings of a dusty macho movie are all there, Bullet also has something to say about greed, the waning days of the Old West and animal cruelty. It’s part adventure picture, part PETA recruiting film and an overlooked ‘70s gem.

3) Vanishing Point

Hopped-up on speed, an ex-cop/race driver played by Barry Newman (who?) bets his dope dealer he can drive a white 1970 Dodge Challenger from Denver to San Francisco in 15 hours. DJ Super Soul (Cleavon Little) spins Big Mama Thornton records and broadcasts updates on “the super driver of the golden West” as he’s “chased by the blue blue meanies on wheels.” Damn shame drive-in theaters are nearly extinct. “Vanishing Point” is a race against the clock, best viewed from a smoky VW bus where nobody knows what time it is. 

2) The Great Race

The dastardly black-clad Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon) and white-suited hero, “The Great Leslie” (Tony Curtis), are rivals in a turn-of-the-20th-century road race from New York to Paris. Plucky reporter Natalie Wood tags along for the journey west across America, the Bering Strait and Russia. Writer/director Blake Edwards has the slapstick comedy dial turned way up. And Lemmon, as you’d expect, steals the show. Some gags fall flat (is there anything more painfully unfunny than a pie fight?), but this epic farce has just enough gas to make it across the finish line.

1) Around the World in Eighty Days

Phileas Fogg (David Niven), a rigid, hyper-scheduled bore, sets off to circumnavigate the globe on a wager with his London gentleman’s club that it can’t be done in 80 days. Racing the clock, he travels by every 1870s mode of transportation imaginable, including ostrich-drawn rickshaw. Mexican comedy legend Cantinflas is Fogg’s faithful man-servant, Passepartout, and a stunning (though laughably miscast) Shirley MacLaine plays the Indian princess who ultimately melts Fogg’s frigid exterior. Today’s jaded shrinking planet audiences may roll their eyes at the cultural stereotypes (cue the savage Sioux Indian attack) and find the exotic locales, um, not so exotic. But we love the big old Hollywood extravaganzas and will take Niven/Cantinflas over Steve Coogan/Jackie Chan any day.

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