When race car driver Brewster Baker (Kenny Rogers) is stopped at a gas station, parts are stolen from his race car. Then while in a diner in a small Texas town, he sees some people stealing parts from another car, and chases the thieves. When the thieves' van goes into a river, Brewster rescues them and discovers that they are orphaned children. The kids were stealing auto parts for "Big John" the corrupt county sheriff, who jails Brewster for breaking and entering, larceny, resisting arrest and speeding. After the kids help break Brewster out of jail, Brewster reluctantly takes the children with him. Eventually, they form a friendship and bond. The end of the movie features real race footage from the 1982 NASCAR Coca-Cola 500, held at Atlanta Motor Speedway and won that year by Darrell Waltrip.
Loosely picking up where Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo left off, protagonist Pete Stancheck (Stephen W. Burns) has inherited Herbie from Jim Douglas, and travels to Mexico (Puerto Vallarta) with his friend Davy "D.J." Johns (Charles Martin Smith) to retrieve the car. There, they befriend Paco (Joaquin Garay, III), a comically mischievous, orphaned pickpocket.
In 2009, the super-wealthy achieve immortality by hiring "bonejackers", mercenaries equipped with time travel devices, to snatch people from the past, just prior to the moment of their deaths, for use as substitute bodies. Those who escape are known as "freejacks" and are considered less than human under the law. In this dystopian future, most people suffer from poor physical health as a result of rampant drug use and environmental pollution, making them unattractive as replacement bodies.
Rajveer Singh (Saif Ali Khan) has an immense passion for stock car racing and dreams of making it big on the racecourse. After being discovered by his manager Harry (Jaaved Jaffrey), he meets Radhika Shekar Rai Banerjee (Rani Mukerji) and instantly falls for her. He joins Speeding Saddles, a failing race team, and transforms from Rajveer Singh to RV the race car driver. He wins his first race and keeps winning, making him quite wealthy.
The film, set over the course of four consecutive New Year's Eves from 1964 to 1967, depicts scenes from each of these years, intertwined with one another as though events happen simultaneously. The audience is protected from confusion by the use of a distinct cinematic style for each section. For example, the 1966 sequences echo the movie of Woodstock using split screens and multiple angles of the same event simultaneously on screen, the 1965 sequences (set in Vietnam) shot hand-held on grainy super 16 mm film designed to resemble war reporters' footage. The film attempts to memorialize the 1960s with sequences that recreate the sense and style of those days with references to Haight-Ashbury, the campus peace movement, the beginnings of the modern woman's liberation movement and the accompanying social revolt. One character burned his draft card, showing a younger audience what so many Americans had done on the television news ten years before the movie's release. Other characters are shown frantically disposing of their marijuana before a traffic stop as a police officer pulls them over, and another scene shows the police brutality with billy clubs during an anti-Vietnam protest.
Professional racecar driver Frank Capua (Paul Newman) meets divorcee Elora (Newman's real-life wife Joanne Woodward). After a whirlwind romance they are married. Charley (Richard Thomas), Elora's teenage son by her first husband, becomes very close to Frank, and helps him prepare his cars for his races. But Frank is so dedicated to his career that he neglects his wife, who has an affair with Frank's main rival on the race track, Luther Erding (Robert Wagner). Frank finds them in bed together and storms out. The couple separate, but Frank still sees Charley regularly. Frank's bitterness fuels his dedication to his work, and he becomes a much more aggressive driver. At the Indianapolis 500, Elora and Charley watch while Frank drives the race of his life and wins. After winning, Frank attends a victory party. He is uninterested when attractive women throw themselves at him, and he slips away. Luther finds Frank and apologizes to him for the affair, but Frank punches him. Frank visits Elora and tells her he wants to start again. Elora is unsure. The film ends with a freeze-frame as the two look uncertainly at each other.
A young widow, Anne Gauthier (Anouk Aimée), is raising her daughter Françoise (Souad Amidou) alone following the death of her husband (Pierre Barouh) who worked as a stuntman and who died in a movie set accident that she witnessed. Still working as a film script supervisor, Anne divides her time between her home in Paris and Deauville in northern France where her daughter attends boarding school. A young widower, Jean-Louis (Jean-Louis Trintignant), is raising his son Antoine (Antoine Sire) alone following the death of his wife Valerie (Valerie Lagrange) who committed suicide after Jean-Louis was in a near fatal crash during the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Still working as a race car driver, Jean-Louis divides his time between Paris and Deauville where his son also attends boarding school.
Stroker Ace is a popular race car driver from Waycross, Georgia, and (according to dialogue), a three-time champion, on the NASCAR circuit. An all-or-nothing man, he wins if he does not crash. He is arrogant and pompous, with no regard for the business side of his racing team. He also has an on-track, season-long rivalry with ambitious young driver Aubrey James (Parker Stevenson).
Lucky Jackson (Elvis) goes to Las Vegas, Nevada to participate in the city's first annual Grand Prix Race. However, his race car, an Elva Mk. VI, is in need of a new motor (engine) in order to compete in the event.
Formula One auto racer Bobby Deerfield is a calculating, control-obsessed loner who has become used to winning the checkered flag on the track. But after he witnesses a fiery crash that kills a teammate and seriously wounds a competitor, Deerfield becomes unsettled by the spectre of death.
À partir d'images d'archives remastérisées, le film raconte le parcours d'Ayrton Senna, du karting à la Formule 1. Les intervenants ne sont qu'entendus en voix off, laissant toute la place à l'image au pilote brésilien. En F1, on suit les débuts du pilote au volant de la Toleman en 1984, jusqu'à son accident mortel du mois de mai 1994 et aux hommages nationaux qui lui seront rendus au Brésil par ses pairs et le pays tout entier.
In 2000, during the 20th annual race, a resistance group led by Thomasina Paine (Harriet Medin), a descendant of 1770s American Revolutionary Thomas Paine, plans to rebel against Mr. President's regime by sabotaging the race, killing most of the drivers, and taking Frankenstein hostage as leverage against the President. The group is assisted by Paine's great granddaughter Annie (Simone Griffeth), Frankenstein's latest navigator. She plans to lure him into an ambush to be replaced by a double. Despite a pirated national broadcast made by Ms. Paine herself, the resistance's disruption of the race is covered up by the government and instead blamed on the French, who are also blamed for ruining the country's economy and telephone system. The game has sadistic rules, where killing a baby and physically challenged people will give the player extra points. Machine Gun Joe (Sylvester Stallone) is the main opposition to Frankenstein.
Taking place in the Gunma prefecture in Japan, the film concerns a young tofu-delivery driver named Takumi Fujiwara, trained from a young age and way before he could drive to deliver tofu to the peak of Mt. Akina (Mt. Haruna in real-life). He had been trained to an incredible level of skill in taking on the five hairpin corners plus using the gutter techniques of Mt. Akina. The film chronicles his evolution from an uninterested delivery boy into a hardened tōge racer, also showing how he learns techniques of racing without affecting his delivery load.
Michael Delaney, coureur automobile, revient sur le circuit des 24 Heures du Mans un an après son grave accident dans lequel Pierre Belgetti, un autre pilote, a perdu la vie. Delaney dispute la course au volant d'une Porsche 917 aux couleurs du pétrolier américain Gulf, il est l'un des deux favoris avec l'Allemand Erich Stahler (sur Ferrari 512 S). La course se déroule sous les yeux de la veuve de Belgetti.