With more time on our hands recently, we’ve been catching up with our favourite action films – our favourites at Scrap Car Comparison are of course being the movies with the biggest car chases! Plenty of research has been done already into which movies destroyed the most cars whilst filming (spoiler: Transformers 3 and Matrix Reloaded) so we thought it’d be fun to find out which action hero is actually responsible for writing off the most vehicles on screen.
Our theory was that one of the seasoned action heroes must have the highest tally, surely Bruce Willis with his Die Hard action sequences and long catalogue of heist movies, or maybe Schwarzenegger or Stallone would take the scrap car crown? What if a younger action A-lister was actually the most dangerous behind the Hollywood wheel?
It took hours of research, and more than a few tubs of popcorn, to make our way through every car crash, car chase and action-packed scene of every film which featured our shortlist of 25 stars – but we can’t complain about an action movie binge and, most importantly, we can now officially reveal which A-lister has written off the most cars on screen.
The Top 10 Most Dangerous On-Screen Drivers (in reverse order):
10. Jason Statham
- Total number of vehicles wrecked on-screen: 18
- Of which he was driving: 6
Thanks to his recurring character Shaw in the Fast and Furious franchise, as well as Lee Christmas in The Expendables trilogy, Statham has clocked up a respectable 18 vehicle write-offs across nine movies. The 2019 Hobbs and Shaw comedy/action spin off saw some of Statham’s more interesting car wrecks; our research noted that “Statham is very skilled at using Idris Elba as a bowling bowl to wreak havoc on other vehicles. He also impressively avoids wrecking a McLaren by drifting it under 2 passing HGVs.”
10. Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson
- Total number of vehicles wrecked on-screen: 18
- Of which he was driving: 12
The Rock comes in at joint-tenth with Jason Statham on our list of A-listers who wreck the most cars on screen. He writes off 18 vehicles across eight of his movies, with the first being an open-top jeep in The Rundown (AKA Welcome To The Jungle), released in 2003 as well as The Other Guys (2010), Central Intelligence (2016) and The Fate of the Furious (2017).
9. Tom Cruise
- Total number of vehicles wrecked on-screen: 19
- Of which he was driving: 12
Cruise is responsible for clocking up 19 car wrecks over seven different feature films. Whilst Knight and Day (2010) and Jack Reacher (2012) contribute to his total, the majority of Cruise’s scrap car count is accumulated in his role as Ethan Hunt in the Mission Impossible series. Despite his high wreck rate on-screen, Cruise is known to be a pretty nifty driver in real life as he performs his own, very technical and very dangerous car stunts.
8. Nicholas Cage
- Total number of vehicles wrecked on-screen: 22
- Of which he was driving: 12
Cage destroys 22 cars over ten different movies, with Con Air (1997), Gone in 60 Seconds (2000) and Ghost Rider (2012) chalking him up the majority of that total. His first on-screen foray into totalling cars is during the 1996 film The Rock, where he loses control of his yellow Ferrari during a San Francisco car chase, placing it the destructive path of a run-away cable car.
7. Daniel Craig
- Total number of vehicles wrecked on-screen: 24
- Of which he was driving: 20
In his role as James Bond, Craig is seen destroying 24 cars across four movies: Casino Royale (2006); Quantum of Solace (2008); Skyfall (2012) and Spectre (2015). His most notable car wrecking scene is in Casino Royale, where, in an effort to avoid running over Vesper Lynd, Bond totals an Aston Martin DBS in the Montenegro countryside, but only after setting a new world-record for the most cannon rolls (seven!) completed by a car ever.
6. Tom Hardy
- Total number of vehicles wrecked on-screen: 29
- Of which he was driving: 2
Across five of his films, Hardy ruins 29 cars, starting with the 2008 Guy Ritchie thriller RocknRolla and ending with Venom (2018). In Venom, Hardy destroys at least 13 cars, over double the number he writes off in scrap car favourite Mad Max Fury Road (2015). Despite spending the entire film behind the driving wheel in Steven Knight’s tense drama Locke (2013), Hardy actually doesn’t crash his vehicle during the film.
5. Keanu Reeves
- Total number of vehicles wrecked on-screen: 30
- Of which he was driving: 21
Writing-off 30 cars in six movies, Keanu Reeves is one of Hollywood’s most dangerous drivers thanks to his role as John Wick. Reeves destroys 17 vehicles whilst playing retired hitman Wick, including five motorbikes. His biggest car kill count however is in the film The Watcher (2000), which includes a scene where he blows up a gas station, destroying the police patrol cars chasing his character. Most notably of course, is the Speed bus explosion; Reeve’s character Jack manages to get everyone, including himself, off the bus before letting it run under the 50mph trigger point, whereby it explodes in fantastic Hollywood fashion, of course taking a grounded aeroplane along with it!
4. Matt Damon
- Total number of vehicles wrecked on-screen: 35
- Of which he was driving: 11
Over 30 of the cars in Damon’s total car wreck count of 35, were made in his role as Jason Bourne. Perhaps the most memorable car wreck is the one from the 2004 Bourne Supremacy, where Jason is pursued in a hijacked yellow taxi cab in Moscow. The chase results in a few car-wrecks, but the lack of big Hollywood explosions definitely makes Bourne’s final collision into the tunnel barrier feel much more brutal – a definite wince moment when you see the damage done to the taxi.
3. Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Total number of vehicles wrecked on-screen: 52
- Of which he was driving: 30
At Scrap Car Comparison, we’re into podium finishes, and it’s the icon of 80s action Arnold Schwarzenegger taking bronze. Arnie manages to destroy 52 cars in 14 movies, with 13 of those car wrecks happening in the Terminator 3 (2003) film alone. The other movies in which Arnie ruins at least five cars or more include The 6th Day (2000), Last Action Hero (1993), Terminator 2: Judgement Day and, of course, the original Terminator (1984).
2. Bruce Willis
- Total number of vehicles wrecked on-screen: 60
- Of which he was driving: 35
Willis would get some serious loyalty perks at a scrap yard, with his movie characters writing off an impressive 60 vehicles between them in 17 movies, including a snowmobile and a helicopter. Willis was prolific in the 1990s, and it pretty much seemed every movie he starred in featured him wrecking cars, from Hudson Hawk (1991) and Striking Distance (1993) to 16 Blocks (2006) and RED (2013). The Die Hard films obviously heavily contribute to his scrap car count, with A Good Day to Die Hard (2013) being the film that Willis destroys the most cars in. The MRAP Moscow chase scene goes down in history as one of the most expensive sequences to shoot, and whilst Willis damages at least 18 cars (including a Lambo) on screen – the director said they actually scrapped 132 cars when creating this scene.
1. Vin Diesel
- Total number of vehicles wrecked on-screen: 61
- Of which he was driving: 57
Diesel takes the crown as the car wrecking king, with his role as Dominic Toretto in the Fast and Furious franchise helping him destroy 61 cars on screen. The film that accelerated Diesel’s car crushing count is 2011’s Fast Five, which sees him responsible for wrecking a whopping 30 cars – most of which were victim to a large vault Toretto recklessly drags through the city during an outrageous heist stunt.
So there you have it, the most dangerous driver in Hollywood, according to how many cars they wreck on-screen, is Vin Diesel – although Bruce Willis comes a close second with a longer history of car-destroying films. The actors ranking just outside of the top 10 deserve a special mention too, as big names featured in our research included Angelina Jolie, who has trashed a total of ten cars in films such as Wanted and Mr & Mrs Smith, Hollywood stalwarts like Harrison Ford and Charlize Theron, Tom Hardy’s co-star in Mad Max: Fury Road and the lead in Atomic Blonde, who wrecks a lot more than just a car! We hope that someday, all of this information will serve you well in a pub quiz!
And remember, if your car is only fit to be used as a prop in the next Fast and Furious car crashing scene, find out how to scrap it here!
