Favorite Chase Scenes

[Mitch Henessey]

Movie chase scenes can provide us with tons of thrills, action, and excitement. Of course, there are many different types. High speed car chases are the most frequent and popular, but there's still a great variety of choices, that don't involve cars and shootouts.

With all that said, what are your favorite chase scenes? There's no limit for the amount of choices in this thread, and I'll start things off with a handful of my favorites!

Back To The Future Part 2

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Marty saved his wimpy son from jail time, but Griff Tannen and his gang wanted to teach Marty a lesson. Griff followed the Tannen bloodline of obnoxious bullies, who loved to torture the McFly family, but Marty had the last laugh during this particular chase scene.

With the help of a hoverboard, Marty escapes Griff and his gang, and Griff's gang payed the price with jail time.

This is one of the more creative and unique chase scenes. The hover board chase is loaded with laughs, and another member of the Tannen family tree suffered a much deserved embarrassing moment.

In a lot of ways, this particular chase scene is very reminiscent of a similar chase in the 1985 original. Remember when Marty made his own skateboard, and avoided 1950's Biff and his gang by clinging to the back of a pick up truck? Go back and watch, and you will see the similarities between both scenes.

Back To The Future Part 2- Pick #2

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Marty couldn't control his temper, and when Biff called him a "chicken" outside of the Enchantment Under The Sea dance, Marty was more than ready for a fight. Marty had Gray's Sports Almanac. The mission was over, but as always, when someone called him "chicken", Marty lost his cool. Well, the Marty McFly from 1985 would smack him in the face with a door, and Biff would grab his precious sports almanac again.

This chase scene is just fantastic. Marty's clever moves to avoid certain death, Biff's desperate attempt to finish off Marty once and for all, and Doc's shocking last minute rescue. And the hoverboard saved Marty's life for a second time! Oh, and Tannen finally got what he deserved...again. The Biff Tannen character is such an obnoxious jackass, and he deserved every ounce of humiliation throughout this film series. The crash into the manure truck is just classic, and Biff's disgusted reaction is truly memorable.

Return Of The Jedi: Speeder Bike Chase

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Fast paced, full of excitement, and the thrills during this chase are unreal. Han Solo's crucial mistake almost jeopardized the entire mission, but Luke and Leia stopped the small group of Stormtroopers from bringing more reinforcements. The deaths of the Stormtroopers are shocking and brutal at the same time, and this chase scene provides some great Star Wars memories for me.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day

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Who could forget this memorable chase?

The truck chase from Judgement Day is full of nail-biting suspense, impressive stunts, thrills, and explosive action. The T-1000 almost succeeds in his mission to kill John Connor, but The Terminator saves his life with a clutch rescue. Also, we see the memorable image of the T-1000 walking through the fire in liquid form here, simply amazing.

2 Fast 2 Furious

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This chase scene is loaded with plenty of "Are you serious?" moments. It's Over the top, a bit silly at times, and completely far-fetched. But this is one of the few chase scenes I can watch over and over again, without getting tired of it. I could create one thread, that featured car chases from the entire Fast & The Furious film series, but this is my #1 favorite pick from the franchise. It's a fun and exciting chase scene, and the humor is just great here. The stunts probably can't match the excitement of other Fast & The Furious films (mainly Tokyo Drift and Fast Five), but I still love this scene, and Roman's "ejecto seato" trick is hilarious.

 

[Mustang Sally]

The chase scene from The French Connection (in 1971) scared the hell out of me. Part of the terror was the offensiveness of the whole episode, as the cop (played by Gene Hackman) drove his car through the congested streets of Brooklyn and Queens, N.Y. at high speed. The villain was on the elevated subway, escaping by train Hackman while followed from below. He didn't care who he took out in his effort to catch the crook; at one point, he almost killed a woman with a baby carriage. He missed her, but it didn't slow him down a bit. He took chances with his life and other people's like I've never seen. In the end, the bad guy escaped anyway, for the time being.

Of course, I've always wondered: in chasing a subway train with a car, what would the cop have done if he caught up to the train, climbed the stairs, got on the train and confronted the bad guy? Wouldn't we have a hostage situation in which the crook captured innocent passengers? I often wondered what the cop actually had in mind.

How about this solution? As a city cop, I would imagine he had the means to have his department call the Transit Police and stop the train in the middle of the track, thereby stranding the bad guy on the elevated subway. Yes, that would also create a hostage situation, but since the cop seem untroubled by that possibility, why not do it? After all, the bad guy would have nowhere to go, right? It would be a stand-off he couldn't ultimately win.

But man,.....what an adventure that chase scene was.

 

[Dowdsy McDowds]

I'm going for one car chase and one foot chase, both of which feature in films that don't quite get the credit they deserve; the Parisian car chase in Ronin and the final running chase through mountains at the end of Last of the Mohicans.


What I love about this chase, is the look of fear on both drivers' faces as they tear through the streets of one of Europe's busiest cities. The fact they are everyday cars and even amongst the chaos of larger crashes there are still little bumps, gives it a sense of realism to a degree. Under-rated chase in a great film.


Last of the Mohicans is amongst my very favourite films of all time. I grew up watching this scene pretty much every weekend with my dad without fully grasping the greatness of it.

Spoiler

What adds to the gravitas of the scene is the father and son dynamic of the 2 men who are the titular last of the mohicans. The son resting his hand on his father's shoulder, sharing a look then departing with a nod is very understated but the fury with which he sprints to slay the man who killed his son is incredibly powerful.

The final clash between two tribes occurring on a slim mountain path is also a great visual metaphor, as the native American tribes are delicately poised above the abyss without much maneuverability.
Still, a great film.

 

[Mitch Henessey]

Thought of a few more choices.....

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Halloween (1978) still maintains its reputation as THE greatest slasher film of all time, and this chase scene is one of my favorites. We've seen Michael Myers stalk, hunt down, and kill many of his victims, but Laurie managed to escape her evil brother here. Dr. Loomis lends a helping hand (not shown in this video), and Laurie would survive until Halloween: Resurrection. The spooky and chilling atmosphere in this scene is just great, the tension is unreal, and Jamie Lee Curtis showcases her reputation as "the original scream queen" in this clip.

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Kyle Reese threw EVERYTHING he had at the T-800, but The Terminator was relentless in his pursuit of Sarah Connor. The Terminator takes a rough beating here, and his constant comebacks can pull plenty of "are you serious?" reactions out of anyone. Great action, thrills, and suspense. You'll be rooting for Sarah and Kyle's survival here, and this chase sequence is truly one of the greats.

 

[Dowdsy McDowds]

So, not so much a chase, as much as a show-chase (see what I did there) of what Tony Jaa could bring to the big screen, before he went mental, spent a fuckton of money and went to live in a cave for a while. Better days for sure.

The gimmick of Ong-Bak was that Jaa performed all his own stunts without the use of a stunt double, wires or crafty CG tricks. The opening scene consists of Jaa in a tree with a bunch of other fellas, which, for what it was, was alright. The chase scene however went a bit over the top with the several repeated replays of his various leaps, bounds, kicks and suchlike, but its still a great scene to enjoy several times over.

 

[JWGunslinger]

Gotta agree that the chase scenes from Back To The Future, Last Of The Mohicans and Terminator 2, all of those instantly came to mind when I was thinking of what I wanted to post.

First I have to say any car chase scene in Walker Texas Ranger or Starsky and Hutch is automatically in my favs because I always loved the way they were done. Now on to my number one pick.

One of my all time favorites is the car chase at the end of McQ(1974) with John Wayne. Being a Duke fan this one is obviously one of my favs but I love that this one takes place on a beach ripping through the water and then John pulls out the Uzi which was a new toy at the time and rips the other guys to shit. Extremely awesome car chase scene in a great cop flick that showed Wayne was just as capable of being a powerful character even off a horse. Enjoy

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[Death Before Disco]

The French Connection car chase first popped into my head, but as Sally has already mentioned it, here's another gem from The Bourne Supremacy:


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All of the Bourne movies have some great chase scenes. The crisp editing in all of the films also contributes to the overall effect of the chases. I particularly liked this chase as Jason Bourne hunted down Karl Urban (I forget his character's name). I especially liked the end where Bourne shoots out Urban's tires and then pushes his vehicle into the dividing wall. Good stuff.

Another honorable mention would be the highway chase scene from The Matrix Reloaded. I especially liked when Neo flies in and snatches Morpheus up from imminent death at the last moment.

 

[Dowdsy McDowds]

I can't find the clip on its own but its at the very start of this sequence, and is another foot-chase, this time from the 1998 film Freak The Mighty.

The film is a bit of a guilty pleasure for me, but is a very powerful story about friendship between 2 outcasts who help each other feel better about themselves despite their problems that have made them outcasts; one is an abnormally large boy deemed stupid, slow and violent, while the other is a scrawny little fella with a disability.

Central to their friendship is the little guy teaching the other to read and feed his imagination, primarily through reading about King Arthur and tales of knights.
Their fleeing from the school bullies is a great moment for them, as they combine the big guy's strength and the little guy's smarts to out-maneuvre the bullies though almost drown themselves in the process.

It may not be up there with the best of all time, but there's a lot of heart and meaning to the chase which I really like.

 

[Mitch Henessey]

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Micahel Ironside is a slimy antagonist in the original Total Recall, and I can always root for Quaid's survival in this scene. Richter and his cronies can't finish the job in this clip, and Ironside's frustrated reaction at the end of this scene is just priceless. Ricther is such an annoying bad guy, and watching Quaid outsmart him in this scene brings a smile to my face. Arnold using the random and innocent civilian as a human shield is funny, gruesome, and really fucked up at the same time. After all, the guy was just minding his own business and he wasn't bothering anyone. Anyway, this chase scene features some nice thrills, and Quaid's escape from the x-ray scanner is just hilarious!

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You can call The Dark Knight Night overrated if you want, but you can't deny the greatness of this particular chase scene. Jaw-dropping stunts, fast paced action, and Heath Ledger as the Joker. Watching Batman play around with his high tech gadgets can be fun, but The Joker is just fantastic here, as he tries to push The Caped Crusader over the edge. This stylish chase scene packs a powerful punch, the camera work from Nolan is flawless, and Gary Oldman's return provides a great surprise at the end. I can STILL remember the roaring applause in the theater during this scene, and this chase is amazing from start to finish.

 

[ShinobiMusashi]

I got to go with the end chase scene from Friday The 13th part 2. The chase scenes in Friday 3 were really good too.

Back when Jason was in human form(as opposed to a zombie corpse) was when that series was at it's best.

Happy Friday The 13th everybody!