The great CinemaScope car chase

Miniature scene with two toy cars on a dirt ramp, one in mid-air, and figures including a film director, two persons with cameras, and a police officer with his motorcycle.

Car chases are a popular subject with media and audiences due to their intensity, drama and the innate danger of high-speed driving, and thus are common content in fiction, particularly action films.

Although car chases on film were staged as early as the motor vehicle itself, the consensus among historians and film critics is that the first modern car chase movie was 1968's Peter Yates movie Bullitt, staring Steve McQueen and his famous Ford Mustang GT Fastback.

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