You don't have to drive a car to fantasize about hurtling through busy city streets at full speed, dodging on-coming traffic left right and centre as several cars race up behind you in hot pursuit. It's one of those daydreams that most of us have had at one time or another in our lives, particularly when we were younger and had just passed our tests and were considerably more fearless than the maturer drivers on the road. Of course, you'd have to be a bit of an idiot (okay, a lot) to actually get in your car and try it for real, which means it's probably a very good thing that there are virtual avenues out there for us to explore this desire vicariously. Video games are a natural outlet for the boy racer, giving them the opportunity to drive like lunatics all day long without putting other lives at risk. Movies, too, offer a long list of exciting automobile thrills we can watch in the comfort and safety of our living room, with the added bonus of featuring real cars that we'd never afford in a million years. The movie car chase might not represent cinema at its most sophisticated (although in terms of staging some chases are technically and logistically jaw-dropping) but for all-out adrenaline-fueled entertainment cinema doesn't get much better. There have been literally hundreds of car chases filmed over the last century of cinema - we've narrowed it down to 20 of the very best for your viewing pleasure. Try not to get any ideas for the drive home from work.
