The Driver

Walter Hill wrote and directed this crime thriller about a professional getaway driver who has never been caught. In a Los Angeles of empty streets and neon-lit parking garages, criminals hire him to carry them away from robberies, and his skill at losing pursuers has made him a legend in the underworld. One detective, humiliated by another failed pursuit, becomes fixated on bringing him down. Since no ordinary chase has worked, the detective pressures a group of criminals into staging a robbery designed as a trap. To stay ahead of the scheme, the driver turns to a mysterious young woman known as the Player, who supplies alibis and whose motives remain unclear.

The film stars Ryan O'Neal as the Driver, Bruce Dern as the Detective and Isabelle Adjani as the Player; most characters are identified only by their roles. Ronee Blakley, Matt Clark and Felice Orlandi appear in supporting parts, with 36 credited cast members and 100 credited crew.

It was produced by Lawrence Gordon for 20th Century Fox and EMI Films on a budget of about 4 million dollars, and its worldwide gross of roughly 5 million dollars made it a modest performer on its 1978 release. It followed Hill's Hard Times and preceded The Warriors, the second of the 22 films he has directed. On IMDb it holds 7.1/10 from 18,798 votes, on TMDB 7.2/10 from 541 votes, while a critics' rating stands at 7.6/10 from 29 reviews.