Steve McQueen, Ford Mustangs and cinema’s coolest car chase: why 1968’s Bullitt is still a must-see movie

Steve McQueen was at the top of his game in the tough detective drama Bullitt (1968), but it’s the 10-minute car chase mid-film that has given it its longe­vity. The tense high-speed race around the streets of San Francisco – which some­times hit speeds of 200km/h – is often described as the greatest movie car chase of all time, although William Friedkin’s The French Connection (1971) gives Bullitt a run for its money.

Directed by Peter Yates, Bullitt was based on Robert Fish’s crime thriller Mute Witness (1963) and produced by McQueen’s Solar Productions. The story­line about a vengeful cop hunting down a hitman is serviceable, although it is the cool cars and the charis­matic McQueen’s por­trayal of a dapper cop that provide the appeal.

Machiavellian politician Walter Chalmers assigns Frank Bullitt (McQueen), a hard-nosed cop with a sensitive side, to guard a mobster witness in a Senate inquiry into organised crime. A pair of hired killers come after the witness and shoot Bullitt’s partner, so he goes after the hitmen. Chalmers wants to close down the hunt so that he can get his witness to testify, and Bullitt concocts a clever scheme to keep the politician off his back while he dispenses with the killers.

The scene still excites today because there are no special effects – it’s a consummate display of driving with ear-shattering engine noises and wicked tyre screeches. The sequence was edited together from multiple camera takes. Auto fans have enjoyed compiling the continuity errors over the years, notably a green Volkswagen beetle that always seems to be ahead of the speeding cars, too many hubcaps flying off the wheels and a dent turning up on a car before it has been hit.