Here’s Which Directors Wrecked The Most Cars In Film History

The 95th annual Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences “Oscars” ceremony is coming up on March 12, yet as far as we could see none of the 10 films nominated for Best Picture involve one of filmdom’s oldest and greatest cinematic devices, the crash-filled car chase.

The history of the automobile and motion pictures alike are inexorably intertwined, with the first car-centric movie—Runaway Match—dating back to 1903, while Mack Sennett’s Keystone Cops’ popularized the car chase in 1912. The post-WWII era found Hollywood and Detroit hitting their collective strides, with cars and car culture playing an increasingly significant role in modern cinema via both pulp films and bona fide Oscar-winning movies.

The latter include The French Connection (1971), in which Gene Hackman’s Popeye Doyle engages in a behind-the-wheel face off with an elevated train, and what’s arguably the most exhilarating chase scene ever committed to celluloid, Bullitt (1968).

And then there are those that seem to exist solely to demolish as many vehicles as cinematically possible. One of the first to pile on the car carnage as thick as a corned beef on rye at the Carnegie Deli was John Landis’ The Blues Brothers (1980). While “on a mission from God,” Jake and Elwood Blues managed to directly or indirectly be responsible for crashing what at the time was the most models ever in a single motion picture, with many of them being retired cop cars. It still holds the honor for most models wrecked in a single chase sequence, filmed beneath Chicago’s signature “L” tracks.

Other film franchises that have subsequently sent cars to the salvage yard with abandon include the many Fast and the Furious entries, the Transformers movies, and The Matrix saga.

To commemorate the most prolific vehicular violence in time for Oscar season, the researchers at the U.K. auto recycling website ScrapCarComparision.com—who should know something about wrecked cars—determined which directors have been responsible for debilitating the most cars over the years for the sake of cinematic glory.

The website cites Michael Bay, perhaps best known for his five Transformers films, as having a hand in the most wrecks in his career at 354 vehicles. Having 15 films on his resume that comes out to 24 vehicles destroyed per motion picture. And that’s not counting any of the CGI-created Transformers that wound up as digital salvage.

Here’s a look at the 10 most destructive directors in the annals of cinema, noting their most noteworthy action-film franchises and the number of cars each have significantly damaged or written off as total losses in their illustrious careers:

1. Michael Bay (Transformers, 2007): 354 cars
2. Justin Lin (Fast and Furious, 2009): 135 cars
3. John Landis (The Blues Brothers, 1980): 120 cars
4. Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins, 2005): 83 cars
5. The Russo Brothers (Avengers Endgame, 2019): 80 cars
6. John Woo (Mission Impossible II, 2000): 77 cars
7. Richard Donner (Lethal Weapon, 1987): 61 cars
8. Steven Spielberg (Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981)
9. Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy, 2004): 51 cars
10. Lana and Lily Wachowski (The Matrix, 1999): 45 cars

You can read the full report here.