Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby follows a NASCAR driver who rises to the top of the sport alongside his closest friend and teammate, Cal Naughton Jr. The two of them finish first and second so regularly that fans treat them as an unbeatable pair. Their dominance is disrupted by the arrival of Jean Girard, a French Formula One driver who joins the NASCAR circuit and beats Ricky at his own game, leaving him shaken and struggling to compete.

Adam McKay directed the film, his third feature after Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie, both from 2004. He wrote the screenplay with Will Ferrell, who plays Ricky. John C. Reilly appears as Cal, Sacha Baron Cohen as Girard, and the cast also includes Gary Cole, Leslie Bibb and Michael Clarke Duncan. Judd Apatow and Jimmy Miller produced the comedy, which runs 108 minutes.

Released in August 2006, the film cost about 73 million dollars and took in roughly 163 million worldwide, a solid return. On IMDb it holds 6.6 out of 10 from around 213,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.4 from a much smaller pool of about 2,000. A critics' rating of 6.6 from 186 reviews places professional response in line with how audiences received it.