Dangerous Directors: Which Movie Directors Cause The Most On Screen Damage?

Back in 2021, we conducted some research to find out the most dangerous drivers in Hollywood, revealing that Vin Diesel, Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger were amongst the Hollywood actors who were responsible for writing off the most vehicles on screen.

However, with the director of any film actually being the one to call the shots – we’ve since been wondering which A-list directors have been destroying the most cars in their films. To find out, we turned our attention to the director’s chair, bought a bucket load of popcorn, and sat down to analyse the filmography of some of the world’s most popular action directors. For each film we watched, we totalled the amount of cars that each director has either damaged, such as bullet-holes in the bodywork or a broken wing mirror, or completely written off.

From this analysis, we can now officially reveal the directors which have been sending the most cars to the action film scrap heap – where does your favourite action movie director rank?

The Directors Who Have Destroyed The Most Vehicles

It was renowned director Michael Bay who topped our list of having wrecked the most cars, having damaged and written off a whopping 354 cars – that’s an average of 24 cars damaged in each of the fifteen films he’s directed. The destruction Bay has created during his career includes crashing a vintage Shelby Cobra 427 into a concrete wall in his 1995 directorial debut Bad Boys, and writing off an incredible 155 cars across the five Transformer films he’s directed. Bay’s first place ranking didn’t come as a huge surprise as the Transformers’ director only recently admitted that he “definitely probably destroyed more vehicles than any other director in history”.

Our research suggests this to be undeniably true, with second place director Justin Lin having only wrecked a total of 135 cars across the ten films he’s directed – an impressive 219 cars less than Bay. Loved by fans for his work on the Fast and Furious films, Lin is followed by John Landis, who ranks in third position overall, having wrecked 120 vehicles to date. This is largely thanks to the number of cars destroyed in the Blues Brothers films, including in the infamous pile up – which holds a Guinness World Record for the largest car pile up on film.

Completing the top five were Christopher Nolan, director of the Batman films, and The Russo Brothers, who have destroyed cars in several Marvel films including Captain America: Civil War (2016) and Avengers: Endgame (2019). Some of the world’s most loved directors including Steven Spielberg and James Cameron, placed further down the rankings, with Cameron having only destroyed 25 cars in his filmography to date.

Ranking outside of the top 15 and known for being kinder to their cars, were directors including Kathryn Bigelow and Quentin Tarantino, who have each only destroyed 12 cars across the films they’ve directed.

Rank	Director	Total Number of Cars Wrecked (Damaged or Written Off)
1	Michael Bay	354
2	Justin Lin	135
3	John Landis	120
4	Christopher Nolan	83
5	The Russo brothers	80
6	John Woo	77
7	Richard Donner	61
8	Steven Spielberg	60
9	Paul Greengrass	51
10	Lana and Lily Wachowski	45
11	Chad Stahelski	30
12	Edgar Wright	25
13	James Cameron	25
14	John McTiernan	21
15	George Miller	18

The Directors Who Have Written Off The Most Vehicles

Breaking the data down by cars directors have simply damaged, or completely totalled, Michael Bay once again tops the rankings when it comes to the directors who have destroyed the most cars, having written off 279 cars in his career to date. Justin Lin, John Landis, The Russo Brothers and Christopher Nolan once again followed to complete the top five, each having written off between 39 and 100 cars.

Lana and Lily Wawchowski moved up two spots in comparison to the  overall rankings, having written off 26 vehicles in their films, which include The Matrix: Reloaded and Speed Racer. Richard Donner, director of the 1978 and 1980 Superman films and Lethal Weapon film series, has also written off 26 vehicles, and Paul Greengrass rounds off the top ten with 18 written off cars to his name.

Rank	Director	Number of Cars Written Off
1	Michael Bay	279
2	Justin Lin	100
3	John Landis	90
4	The Russo Brothers	44
5	Christopher Nolan	39
6	John Woo	39
7	Steven Spielberg	37
8	Lana and Lily Wachowski	26
9	Richard Donner	26
10	Paul Greengrass	18

The Directors Who Have Damaged The Most Vehicles

It was not surprising that Michael Bay once again topped the rankings, this time in the list of directors who have simply damaged the most vehicles in their careers so far. Christopher Nolan moved up to second spot, having damaged (but not completely destroyed) a total of 44 cars in his role as a director, while Mission: Impossible 2’s John Woo ranked in third position having damaged 38 cars.

The Russo Brothers, Richard Donner and Justin Lin ranked in positions four to six, each having damaged between 35 and 36 vehicles – less than half of the vehicles Michael Bay can be held responsible for. Finally, Chad Stahelski, famed for his work on the John Wick films, has only written off ten vehicles in his career to date, but has damaged a further 20, leading him to round off the top ten. 

Rank	Director	Number of Cars Damaged
1	Michael Bay	75
2	Christopher Nolan	44
3	John Woo	38
4	The Russo Brothers	36
5	Richard Donner	35
6	Justin Lin	35
7	Paul Greengrass	33
8	John Landis	30
9	Steven Spielberg	23
10	Chad Stahelski	20

If your car is only fit to be used as a prop in the next Transformers fight scene, find out how to scrap it or how to sell your vehicle for salvage.

Methodology

We compiled a list of the most popular action movie directors in the world, using rankings from IMDB, and tallied up the number each director had either damaged or ‘written off’ within their films. ‘Damage’ was classed as a car that had experienced the likes of bullet holes in the bodywork, a smashed windscreen or various dents, while those that were ‘written off’ were those that had been significantly crashed beyond repair, crushed or the victim of an explosion.

The numbers included in the research detail cars damaged in the final cut of each feature film researched, but not during production of the film itself (cars damaged during takes that weren’t used in the final edit of the film).

Data correct as of February 2023.