10 best street racing movies that get underground car culture right (2024)

While we certainly don’t endorse street racing – please take it to the track – that doesn’t mean there aren’t a bunch of very entertaining movies out there based on the culture that surrounds illegal night time exploits on the highways and boulevards that crisscross the globe.

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In addition to one very famous, near-inescapable blockbuster series, there are a number of other must-see street racing movies out there that try to have fun with, document, or dramatize the antics of those who simply can’t drive 55. Here are our favourites, as picked from the last 50 years of street racing cinema.

The Fast and The Furious (2001)

What is it?

A fantastic remake of Kathryn Bigelow’s Point Break, only this time instead of surfing, it’s import street racing; and instead of Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze, it’s Paul Walker and Vin Diesel.

What makes it cool?

When this mid-budget gem hit theatres in the summer of 2001, no one could have known that a plot about a buster infiltrating a gang of street racers stealing DVD players from moving 18-wheelers would blossom into a billion-dollar superhero franchise.

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In fact, the movie is far better if you re-watch it for what it was at the time: the first serious cinematic take on late-’90s/early-2000s import drag and tuner culture with a caper plot mixed in for flavour.

Find another way home, pizza boy.

The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)

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What is it?

Japanese drift culture gets its only American cinematic moment in a rare $85-million movie where Hollywood allowed characters of colour to dominate the cast.

What makes it cool?

Formula D was in its infancy when Tokyo Drift introduced touge racing to the mainstream. It’s also the last movie in the Fast and Furious series to be completely focused on car culture, and specifically the action on the other side of the Pacific, which until 2006 had been chronicled exclusively by Japanese films that were rarely seen outside the island. Audiences in the U.S. stayed away at the time of its theatrical release, but it helped set the international template that would dominate the rest of the franchise’ casting decisions.

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Mischief 3000 (2002)

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What is it?

Tekademics sneaks its Mischief series into an early running of the Gumball 3000.

What makes it cool?

In a pre-YouTube world, if you wanted to see video of people hooning cars and generally making bad decisions behind the wheel you had to seek out speciality VHS and DVD flicks put together by those willing to risk being ID’d by local law enforcement (like Toru Kirikae taking his Ferrari F40 to 200 mph on a Japanese highway).

This particular Tekademics documentary was for many their first entry into a heretofore hidden world of stickered-up exotics running triple-digit speeds across the American heartland, with occasionally disastrous results.

Initial D (2005)

What is it?

A live-action adaptation of the drifting manga that became a global cultural phenomenon.

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What makes it cool?

The story of Takumi the tofu delivery driver’s dominance over the Mount Akina drift scene in his Toyota AE86 Corolla is one of the most enduring works of street racing fiction to ever have been immortalized on film, in animation, or on celluloid. Although no cinematic masterpiece, Initial D pre-dated Tokyo Drift in putting touge action on the silver screen, and remains an important document of its era.

The Wraith (1986)

What is it?

Charlie Sheen is a car, and a ghost, and potentially just a normal dude, who murders his murderers while street racing.

What makes it cool?

What, that description wasn’t enough? The Wraith posits a world where a street racing teen can be reincarnated as the Dodge M4S Turbo Interceptor supercar, while also sort of still going to high school and hanging out with his buddies. Oh, and every time there’s a street race, he manages to use the ‘Wraith’ (the name given to the M4S) to get sweet, fiery revenge on his killers. Just go with it.

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Megalopolis Expressway Trial (1988, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1996)

What is it?

A six-part film series based on the ‘Mid Night Club’ freeway racing scene surrounding Tokyo’s Shuto Expressway that was actually banned in Japan at the time of its release (and still is).

What makes it cool?

Also known as Shuto Kousoku Trial and Freeway Speedway, this six-parter follows the exploits of street racers determined to set the best times – and show each other up door-to-door – on the stretch of Tokyo expressway called the ‘Bayshore’ route, or more commonly Wangan-sen. The original movie capitalized on the hottest period of illegal Wangan exploits, and features amazing footage of classic JDM metal repeatedly breaking Japan’s restrictive speed limits.

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Banzai Runner (1987)

What is it?

Japanese freeway racing brought to America’s deserts.

What makes it cool?

Banzai Runner is based on an actual series of high-stakes underground races that took place on the then-empty highways running through the desert landscape outside of Los Angeles, California in the early 1980s. The movie adds the element of a man trying to infiltrate this elite group of exotic-driving miscreants in a bid to bring them to justice for the death of his brother.

It’s thoroughly ridiculous, and very entertaining if you love watching Porsche 928s and even a surprisingly fast pickup truck engage the afterburners across an abandoned vista.

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Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)

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What is it?

James Taylor and Dennis Wilson (of Beach Boys fame) roam the land in a ’55 Chevy making money on all the street racing action they can pick up.

What makes it cool?

Two-Lane Blacktop is emblematic of the school of ’70s cinema that left plot by the wayside and just focused on moody visuals and brooding characters without much to say. There’s sort of a rivalry with a Pontiac GTO (whose driver is also named… GTO), but that’s not important.

Forget the story and just get lost in the weird dreamscape of street racing and soundtrack painted by director Monte Hellman, who would go on to direct such notable releases as Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out!

Børning (2014)

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What is it?

Without question, the greatest Norwegian movie ever made about street racing.

What makes it cool?

Now awaiting its second sequel, the original Børning posits a race from Trondheim to Norway’s North Cape by a motley crew of surprisingly adult gearheads. Main character and local racing hero Roy’s ’67 Mustang has ‘Official Chevy Killer’ written on the door, there are a bunch of sweet jumps, and more than a little photo-radar mayhem. It’s the kind of home-grown street racing movie America hasn’t yet been able to produce.

Wangan Midnight (1991-2009)

What is it?
Another take on Shuto Expressway racing, only this time with a supernatural twist.

What makes it cool?

‘Freeway racing is cool and all, but you know what would make it better? A haunted Datsun Z!’ That’s how we imagine the pitch for the original Wangan Midnight movie went after a film exec chanced across a copy of the manga that inspired it.

The story centers around a cursed S30 driven by a high school student who is trying to both stay alive behind the wheel of his ‘Devil Z’ while also beating back the RX-7s, 911s, and Skylines that dominate the Bayshore route. Oh, and they made 13 movies and 14 video games based on the same general concept. No joke.