Death Proof (2007)

Director Quentin Tarantino wanted to prove that he could craft one of the best car chase sequences ever made in the history of cinema, in homage to the exploitation films of yester-year. The film told about a group of young daredevil women (including Abernathy Ross (Rosario Dawson) and Kim Mathis (Tracie Thoms)) who took a white, heavily-modified 1970 Dodge Challenger (the same vehicle from Vanishing Point (1971)) out for a test-drive. With Kim driving at high-speeds and Abernathy as a passenger, stuntwoman Zoe "The Cat" Bell (Herself) played a dangerous game called "ship's mast" - in which she hung onto the car's hood, held on with only two belts strapped through the windshield.

From a distance, psychopathic and deranged stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) saw them and pursued them in his souped-up 1969 Dodge Charger, and began to battle against them. He slammed into the back of their car and repeatedly tried to divert the car off the two-lane rural road, until continued rear-end collisions spun the white car around and sent Zoe flying off the hood. When he pulled over, he declared: "Hey! Ladies, that was fun!" As he bid them: "Well, Adios!", Kim shot Mike's waving arm. The two feared that Zoe was hurt, but she appeared unharmed from the bushes: "Whew, that was a close one."

Turning the tables on him, the females decided to follow after Mike in his car to seek revenge, after Zoe suggested: "Do you wanna go get him?" Abernathy agreed: "Let's kill this bastard." Zoe retrieved a lead pipe from the side of the road and hung onto the car's door/window as they sped off. After they caught up to the car, Zoe chased after Mike, and bashed in his window with the lead pipe. When he took off, they followed and rammed into him, giving him some of his own medicine ("You don't like it up the ass, do ya, you redneck lunatic bastard!").

Following a long chase, they caused his car to flip multiple times, and Mike fractured his right arm in the crash. The girls pulled him, screaming in pain from the car and continued to mercilessly beat him - with repeated punches (and then a final roundhouse kick) to his face, before he fell down.

THE END appeared as the women triumphed and cheered. After some brief credits, Abernathy dealt a crushing blow to Mike's neck with her boot.

Live Free or Die Hard (2007)

The most impressive and inventive chase sequence in this fourth Die Hard installment was John McLane's (Bruce Willis) pursuit of bad-guy Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant), who had seized McLane's daughter Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) as a "bargaining chip" - and fled in a small Haz-mat truck, followed by a semi-trailer-rig carrying a portable computer control center. An F-35 fighter jet was on its way, sent by the Pentagon, along with numerous other helicopters.

McClane escaped from the building and lept onto the top of the semi-rig to pursue them. He killed the driver of the semi-truck and then hijacked it to continue the chase. By CB-radio, McClane contacted Frederick "Warlock" Kaludis (Kevin Smith) to request a patch-link through to the FBI and its Deputy Director Miguel Bowman (Cliff Curtis). He was able to speak to Bowman, and informed him of Gabriel's updated location on the 695 interstate, headed north in a Haz-mat truck.

Gabriel instructed his final remaining computer hacker Trey (Jonathan Sadowski) to hack into the computer go-codes of the Pentagon's F-35 fighter jet, and to falsely communicate the location of the "terrorist vehicle" - misinforming the jet pilot that McClane's "big rig truck" was the confirmed target, and that he was "authorized to confirm and destroy." As the freeway above him collapsed from the jet's assault by missiles, McClane screamed out: "You're shooting at the wrong guy." After a second missile missed, McClane taunted: "Is that your best shot?!"

Falling debris from the overhead collapsing highway crippled the jet's engine, and caused the pilot to eject, as McClane fell onto the wing of the spinning aircraft from a destroyed ramp on an incline - he miraculously survived when he jumped to safety as it exploded upon impact.

The Dark Knight (2008)

The multi-car chase sequence in this popular Batman installment was in a nighttime scene in the city of Gotham, where a police convoy was escorting DA Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) to the County Jail in a SWAT van. The scene was exceptional because of the wide variety of vehicles involved -- police cars, an overhead helicopter, a SWAT van, a 16-wheeler (driven by the Joker), and Batman's new wide-wheeled Batpod after his own Batmobile suffered "damage catastrophic."

During the trip, the police vehicles (with helicopter above and a SWAT van holding the prisoner) were furiously pursued and ambushed by the Joker (Heath Ledger), who fired a bazooka at the police vehicles during a shoot-out. The copter was brought crashing to the ground, and the 16-wheeler caused significant destruction.

The sequence ended with a face-off battle between the Joker in the 16-wheeler and Batman's Batpod - with the spectacular sight of the 16-wheeler flipping end over end. After crawling from the wreckage, the Joker stood in the street and challenged Batman's Batpod to hit him, when Lt. Gordon was able to put a gun to the Joker's head ("We gotcha, ya son-of-a-bitch!").

Quantum of Solace (2008)

During a high-speed car chase in the opening pre-title credits sequence, James Bond (Daniel Craig) was pursued in his gray Aston Martin DBS on a curvy and narrow mountainous road (with tunnels) near Siena, Italy with abducted Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) bound up in his trunk.

He eluded villains driving in two black Alfa Romeos behind him firing machine-guns - one of their cars crashed head-first into a dump truck. He performed a 360 degree turn, and avoided collisions as he passed vehicles and trucks, and ended up hurtling through a twisting, hair-pin dirt road within a rock quarry. A police van, which had joined in the chase, crashed and flipped off the side of the road, barely missing Bond's vehicle further below as it rolled by.

As the two remaining vehicles jockeyed for position and attempted to side-swipe each other, Bond overcame and sent the second Alfa Romeo off the cliff.

Wanted (2008)

Russian director Timur Bekmambetov's dark and brutal action summer blockbuster was a Matrix wanna-be sci-fi film with mind-bending and impressive special effects. The main character was 24 year-old Moravian-born American Wesley Allan Gibson (James McAvoy), a frustrated, aimless and broke, apathetic, hypochondriac, weak and wimpy ("pussy") account manager in Chicago. Soon, he was to be inducted into a top secret organization of super assassins known as the "Fraternity."

One night in a drug store pharmacy, Wesley was confronted by mysterious, anorexic Fraternity member Fox (Angelina Jolie), who claimed that she knew his recently-killed father, an elite professional assassin - and "one of the greatest assassins who ever lived." To his further surprise, she rescued him (actually herself!) in the store from being assassinated by an alleged killer - rogue ex-Fraternity member Cross (Thomas Kretschmann) who was thought to have betrayed Wesley's father before killing him in cold blood, and was now gunning down the members of the Fraternity one-by-one.

Fox rescued Wesley in a thrilling shootout within the store and then in a subsequent car chase. As Wesley was pursued in a parking lot by a Nibblers van hijacked by Cross, she drove up to him in a red Dodge Viper SRT-10, did a 360 degree turn, and scooped him up into the passenger seat as the car wheeled around. Then as they were chased, she shot out the front windshield, pushed it away with her feet, and laid on her back on the car's hood as she shot back at Cross. The chase ended when she flipped the Viper over a police barricade, and they sped away along the side of a half-turned Lakeshore bus.

In another sequence, Wesley flipped his 1966 Ford Mustang upside down over a bullet-proofed black limo (with the aid of Fox driving in the opposite direction in a silver Corvette with a wedge-shaped front to facilitate the flip) so that he could shoot the target (smoking a cigar and listening to opera) in the backseat through the open moon roof. After the successful hit, he said: "I'm sorry."