Few things have split opinion in the Autocar office in recent memory like the 2025 movie F1.

While some of my colleagues enjoyed the whimsical, engagingly dramatised nature of Brad Pitt's motorsport blockbuster, I found it about as thrilling as watching a DRS train lap Monaco 50 times.

I thought it was unrealistic, corny and predictable, and some of the more appalling snippets of dialogue made me (and other members of the audience) laugh out loud.

But while the storyline failed to impress, I couldn't fault director Joseph Kosinski and his team for the way in which the movie was filmed: the racing sequences, shown from the perspectives of driver and audience, were epic.

Every on-track duel invoked the adrenaline-fuelled thrill of the very best movie car chases, which got me thinking: what are the key ingredients for an exhilarating hot pursuit? This is subjective, of course, but for me a good car chase needs three things: realistic stunts, exciting cinematography and the complete absence of computer-generated imagery (CGI).

Far-fetched crashes and disproportionate explosions do nothing for me. They're used as a desperate attempt to entertain when really they achieve the exact opposite, dulling any sense of believability. In many ways, the rise of CGI has been the downfall of the Fast and Furious franchise.

Back in the early 2000s, these were car movies first and action movies second. Now they're just a series of utterly impossible stunts and chase scenes with some priceless hypercars thrown in as support actors (and Vin Diesel mumbling "family" every 10 minutes).

This is why I get a more tangible thrill from movie car chases of the past: well-choreographed sequences with real cars, real stunts and the unmistakable sense that a human is actually behind the wheel deliver a visceral experience that we car lovers can enjoy.