There are few more heart-stopping, high-octane motorsport movies than those set at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. That’s probably because the Circuit de la Sarthe has produced its fair share of cinematic moments in real life – not least during the 1959 race when Carroll Shelby steered Aston Martin to a historic one-two win from behind the wheel of a DBR1 racer, a triumph committed to film in the full-throttled opening sequence of 2019’s Le Mans ’66.
Yet, as its title suggests, Le Mans ’66 (in which Shelby is played by Matt Damon) soon shifts its focus to a later race, one that puts Christian Bale’s Ken Miles in the driving seat. The film, directed by James Mangold, may not have been shot at Le Mans – instead, five locations doubled for the iconic circuit, including a five-mile country road in Georgia, standing in for the Mulsanne Straight – but the production proved its commitment to authenticity elsewhere, and revolutionised the way motor racing was captured for the big screen.
Just as the 24 Hours of Le Mans has been pushing the limits of motor racing for over a century, so too have the endurance race’s depictions in cinema advanced the art of filmmaking. Le Mans ’66 saw Mangold put his stunt drivers in custom-built, track-capable replica racers, cars that could reach speeds of up to 180mph. And, among the various trailers and ‘trays’ upon which cameras were mounted, his crew pioneered what they nicknamed the ‘Frankenstein car’, a half-car, half-truck rigged with multiple cameras in which Bale could sit while a stunt driver controlled the vehicle from a pod at its rear. Such innovations immersed the actor – and audience – into genuine, dynamic action.
But the film, which was released in the US as Ford v Ferrari (where brand trademarks can be freely used in movie titles and fewer filmgoers are aware of Le Mans), was far from Hollywood’s first take on the famous race. In fact, the first-ever motion picture featuring Le Mans was released two years before the race on which Mangold’s movie was based: the 1964 short 24 heures d’amant, for which director Claude Lelouch captured footage from the previous year’s event. In 1970, another film debuted, the racy Italian thriller Le Mans, Scorciatoia per l’inferno (or Le Mans, Shortcut to Hell). Like Le Mans ’66, its name differed during its stateside release, where it became – inexplicably – Summer Love. It was a kitsch, melodramatic offering, and one swiftly forgotten when doomed Steve McQueen vehicle, Le Mans, premiered the following year.
The 1971 release had long been a passion project for racing hobbyist McQueen, but famously began filming without a finished script and encountered many on-set snafus (including David Piper, a retired Formula 1® driver, losing a leg in a crash). Many of the racing scenes in Le Mans were filmed during the actual 1970 race but, while McQueen (who had turned down the lead in 1967’s Grand Prix to make the film) had stipulated in his contract that he would do all of his own driving, race officials denied his request to race for real – with Sir Jackie Stewart as his teammate. Eventually, producers entered a car that McQueen had previously co-driven at the 12 Hours of Sebring, fitting it with three heavy cameras to capture in-race footage. Despite its aerodynamic disadvantage, the car still finished in second place. Officials, however, refused to acknowledge the achievement, claiming the car’s frequent stops to change film reels meant it hadn’t covered the race’s minimum required distance. The whole affair left a sour taste in McQueen’s mouth; he never raced again.
Le Mans, perhaps, also became a cautionary tale among filmmakers, as it would be another three decades before the race returned to the big screen (in 2003’s French comic adaptation Michel Vaillant, a revenge flick which was filmed on location, and pioneered an abstract, blue-hued style of cinematography). More recent motoring movies have steered clear of Le Mans but, like Mangold’s 2019 film, took inspiration from real-life stories. The Adam Driver-starring Ferrari depicted another endurance race, the Mille Miglia. Race for Glory retold early rivalries of the World Rally Championship. Even Rush staged F1 set pieces worthy of the multiplex. This summer, Brad Pitt will star in F1 from Joseph Kosinski, of Top Gun: Maverick, a director who has long wanted to make a motor racing movie. Indeed, several years ago, he was attached to the most recent blockbuster to feature Le Mans: 2023’s Gran Turismo.
Eventually, however, it was Neill Blomkamp who called the shots on Gran Turismo, using the Hungaroring as a double for the Circuit de la Sarthe. The film, which tells the story of how Jann Mardenborough went from sim gamer to professional racer, employed FPV drones, 8K sensors and camera extension systems to deliver the most visually compelling, technically accurate depiction of the iconic race as possible. Each LMP2 racer used a similar ‘pod’ system to Mangold’s ‘Frankenstein car’ and every moment and manoeuvre was captured by the small-scale cameras developed for the cockpits of Top Gun: Maverick. The film co-stars David Harbour, whose character describes Le Mans as “a different animal”.
“It’s the most physically demanding, technically challenging race in the entire world,” he adds. “It’s dangerous. It tests you.” And, thanks to ever-developing film cameras, directors ever striving for authenticity and Hollywood’s enduring (if erratic) fascination with Le Mans, it’s a race that audiences can experience around the world, again and again, in all its relentless, high-speed glory.
