Whether you’re a petrol-head craving the roar of a revving engine, a life-long Brad Pitt fan, or both, you’ve probably already seen F1: a movie that lapped the competition at the summer box office last year before racing its way to an unlikely Best Picture nomination at the 2026 Academy Awards. Like Joseph Kosinski’s previous film, Top Gun: Maverick, this is a movie for anyone who appreciates high-spec filmmaking—especially anything with a tactile, action-forward approach that doesn’t rely too heavily on CGI.
With Pitt at the wheel, Kerry Condon and Javier Bardem in the pit, Kosinski at the controls, and Jerry Bruckheimer and the great Lewis Hamilton rounding out the crew, everything was precisely calibrated for F1 to become a roaring success—and it delivered. If you’re yet to see it and are looking for a warm-up, or if you have and are simply craving another movie that delivers a similar rush, use our guide below to discover ten of the best racing movies ever made, and find out where to watch them on AppleTV, Netflix, Prime Video and elsewhere.
Rush (2013)
If you like Chris Hemsworth, the great German actor Daniel Brühl, and the ‘70s nostalgia of films like American Hustle and The Nice Guys, Ron Howard's Rush should go to the very top of your watchlist. It’s a gripping period movie that covers an infamous moment in the sport's history, but it also marks a highpoint in Brühl's career—the actor was nominated for a Bafta and a Golden Globe for his performance before narrowly missing out with the Oscars.
Set largely during the fateful 1976 Formula 1 season, the story focuses on the rivalry and eventual respect between the spiky Austrian legend, Niki Lauda (Brühl), and the handsome and arrogant Englishman, James Hunt (Hemsworth), a handsome but cocky Englishman, in a movie
Ford v Ferrari (2019)
Ford v Ferrari is one of the best dad-core movies of the last ten years. If you like the kind of story where a scrappy team (played by impossibly charismatic actors) gets to show the lame establishment guys how it’s done—think classics like Cool Runnings and Moneyball—you’re going to love everything about it.
Set in 1966, Ford v Ferrari follows the prickly yet endearing friendship between Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon), a retired champ turned designer, and the maverick race car driver, Ken Miles (a brilliant Christian Bale). Ferrari once again play the antagonists in what is a surprisingly moving account of the Ford racing team’s attempt to end a period of Italian dominance at the 24 hours of Le Mans.
Senna (2010)
To put it briefly: Senna is one of the best sports documentaries ever made. Released in 2010 to universal acclaim, it's also proved itself to be one of the most influential—looking back on it now, it's hard to imagine the likes of Rush, F1, or even Drive To Survive existing without it. If you’re a fan of any of those, or sports docs in general, I can't recommend it enough.
The movie is an essay-like documentary from Asif Kapadia, the British director behind the similarly great bio-docs Amy and Diego Maradona. If you've seen either of those, you'll know that Kapadia doesn’t rely on interviews or talking heads to tell the story here—which details the life, brilliance, and tragic death of the Brazilian driver Ayrton Senna, a three-time winner of the F1 championship. It’s a movie that successfully elevates the sport of race car driving into something approaching art.
Speed Racer (2008)
Speed Racer is a dazzling, digital sugar-rush (or headache, depending on your tastes) of images and colour—so, if you're a fan of eye-popping visuals, you should consider taking it for a ride. Based on a Japanese anime from the 1960s, it stars Emile Hirsch as a plucky young driver looking to follow in his brother’s footsteps by racing against the crooked Royalton Industries team—just don’t worry about the narrative too much; it's a movie that's all about the vibes.
On first release, audiences and critics didn't really know what to make of Speed Racer but it has recently acquired low-key cult status. Any work bold enough to do its own thing and loud enough to stick around for a while will always earn that kind of reassessment, sooner or later. The Wachowski sisters’ movie has done just that, and deservedly so.
Gran Turismo (2023)
Gran Turismo, one of the more recent entries on this list, is far from perfect but it’s a solid, no-nonsense sports movie that's perfect for a lazy Tuesday evening on the couch. It was also a breakout role for Archie Madekwe—so if you've appreciated his recent work in movies like Lurker or Saltburn, this one's well worth a watch.
The story is a loose adaptation of Jann Mardenborough’s unlikely real-life journey from online GT gamer to professional race-car driver. F1 director Joseph Kosinski was initially approached to direct, but the job eventually fell to Neill Blomkamp, director of District 9, who does a perfectly fine job with the race scenes and, thanks to a fine performance from David Harbour, a pretty decent job with everything else.
Ferrari (2023)
It just made all kinds of sense that Michael Mann–the legendary Heat director and a certified lover of all things slick, complex, and dangerous–would eventually make a racing film. Enter Ferrari, a soulful biopic on the legendary designer and car manufacturer, Enzo Ferrari.
The movie, which features a great performance by Adam Driver in the lead role, focuses on the fateful Mille Miglia race in 1957—a pivotal moment for both the man and the company he built. This one will be interesting for fans of Mann’s more recent work (like Blackhat and Miami Vice) but also for any racing fans with an interest in the sport's history.
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006)
If you’re looking for a racing movie that takes itself a lot less seriously than most of the other movies on this list, Talladega Nights will probably be more your speed. This was Adam McKay and Will Ferrell’s second collaboration after Anchorman and it's still one of the funniest things they’ve ever done.
The movie stars Ferrell as Ricky Bobby, a championship NASCAR driver who suffers a deadly crash and then must overcome his demons to get back in the driving seat. Some of the jokes haven’t aged as well as others, understandably, but two years before re-teaming on Step Brothers, the Ferrell and John C. Reilly double-act is in its prime.
Logan Lucky (2017)
Similar to Talladega, Logan Lucky is probably best described as a comedy set in the race world rather than a pure racing movie, but that doesn’t mean it won't be something that race fans won't love. It’s fitting that the nominatively determined Adam Driver features twice on this list, this time as one half of the Logan brothers in a NASCAR-set movie that's probably closer in tone to a heist movie than F1.
Though sharply written and directed by Steven Soderbergh, it not quite on the same level as the director’s snare-tight Ocean's movies, but with Channing Tatum, Daniel Craig, and Riley Keough rounding out a charismatic cast, it certainly has a real good time trying.
The Final Destination (2009)
David R. Ellis’ The Final Destination is naturally more for the horror fans out there, but the incredible opening bloodbath makes it, IMO, a worthwhile addition to any podium of racing movies. The NASCAR-set sequence has so much fun imaging all the gnarly ways that people can lose their heads at a race track; the only surprise is that it took the franchise's directors this many films before they dreamed it up.
The Final Destination is confusingly the fourth movie in the series, but I think it’s one of the very best. If you had a good time with Bloodlines last year, make sure to give it a watch.
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
Perhaps it’s cheating, but anyone with a need for more speed after seeing Joseph Kosinski’s latest film could do far worse than revisiting its predecessor, Top Gun: Maverick. Reprising one of his most famous roles (from 1986's Top Gun), Tom Cruise stars as a Navy pilot who must take to the skies for one last mission—at least, at time of writing.
So many of the building blocks that made F1 great are all present and accounted for here: the practical effects, the incredible sound design, the sight of a man in his 60s showing all the cocky young guys how it’s done. It's a movie that deserves to be seen as big and as loud as humanly possible.
