Car stunts have been a vital part of blockbuster filmmaking for decades, and each one seems to top the last when it comes to chases, crashes and barrel rolls. Need for Speed, starring Aaron Paul as a mechanic who races muscle cars in his spare time, looks to contain more than its fair share of stunt-driving derring-do. The movie doesn't open until Friday, so in the meantime watch 10 car stunts that truly blew our minds.

The Man with the Golden Gun

The James Bond franchise is full of stunning car chases, but one of the most jaw-dropping stunts occurs in one of the worst 007 adventures. About midway through The Man with the Golden Gun, Bond needs to cross a river if he hopes to catch the skilled assassin Francisco Scaramanga. His only option? Jump off a broken, twisted bridge and literally spiral to the other side like a perfectly thrown football. Not even the cheesy sound effect can ruin this perfect stunt.

Mad Max

The Mad Max series is renowned for its amazing car chases, but there's something about the gritty, death-defying stunts of the first film that make you want to yell "Oh my God, how are they doing this?" The first film concludes with Mel Gibson's vengeful cop pursuing the men who murdered his family. One of them meets his end by accidentally steering his motorcycle straight into an oncoming truck. Watching it now, we have no idea how they did this without killing a stuntman.

Death Proof

Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof concludes with one of the most thrilling car chases of all time, but it really earns its keep with the huge car crash in the middle of the film. In the incredibly violent scene, Kurt Russell's evil Stuntman Mike intentionally drives his "death proof" vehicle into a car full of his latest victims. The resulting crash is captured from several angles, which repeat one right after the other, each one somehow more horrifying than the last.

The Blues Brothers

What's most impressive is how even the craziest stunts in John Landis' The Blues Brothers have a sense of humor. In the nuttiest sequence in the movie, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd's well-dressed blues musicians flee from an army of police officers through the streets of Chicago, but their fancy driving leads to the biggest and funniest car pileup in cinematic history.

The Fast and the Furious

The Fast and Furious movies have gotten so big and crazy that it can be hard to remember how stripped down and simple the first film is. The original The Fast and the Furious concludes with a drag race between Vin Diesel and Paul Walker that begins simply enough and gets nutty when they have to beat a speeding train. However, it gets truly iconic when Diesel overturns his car, leading to the shot that sold a gazillion movie tickets.

The Matrix Reloaded

You can debate how good or bad The Matrix Reloaded was, but everyone agrees that the big freeway chase is one of the best actions scenes of the millennium. It's impossible to select a single moment from the sequence that stands out from the rest. The chase begins as a simple pursuit between two parties and quickly escalates into a full-blown highway apocalypse, with each flip and crash topping the previous one.

Ronin

Many Hollywood highway car chases are impressive for the sheer amount of destruction they cause. Others, like the famous car chase in Ronin, are mind-blowing because of the top-notch precision driving on display. As Robert De Niro and Jean Reno pursue the bad guys through the streets of Paris, they weave in out of traffic, drive against oncoming traffic and generally do the kind of driving that makes your hair stand on end. This is stunt driving for the thinking viewer.

The Dark Knight

There are many reasons why The Dark Knight became one of the most popular movies of all time, but surely the now-iconic truck flip has got to be in the top five. Following the Joker's failed attempt to assassinate Harvey Dent, Batman faces down his foe on his Batpod, firing off a few cables with his Bat-gadgets. His trap works and the Joker's 18-wheeler flies through the air, crashing to the ground and creating one of the most impressive practical stunts of all time.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

The liquid metal villain of Terminator 2: Judgment Day is a force of nature who never gives up hunting his prey. To drive this point home, the film puts him behind the wheel of a massive truck for a stunt that only a fearless machine could pull off. While in pursuit of John Connor, he crashes through a barrier, flies off a bridge and lands with a slow-motion thud that lets you see every part of the vehicle shudder.

Bad Boys II

Bad Boys II is one of the loudest and craziest action movies ever made, but it peaks early with a car chase that has to be seen to be believed. As Will Smith and Martin Lawrence pursue the bad guys through Miami's freeway system, the villains respond by literally flinging cars in their direction. It's a sequence that looks expensive, dangerous and irresponsible in every possible way. In other words, it's pretty fantastic.

Check out a car-chase scene from Need for Speed:

Yeah yeah, we know we left off a few. What should have been included in our list?