Best movies like The California Kid

In this town a speeding ticket is a death sentence.

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The California Kid Starring Martin Sheen, Vic Morrow, Michelle Phillips, Stuart Margolin, and more. If you liked The California Kid then you may also like: Six Pack, Vanishing Point, Wheels of Terror, White Lightning, The Wraith and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

A sadistic small-town sheriff has a habit of deliberately forcing speeders to their deaths on the mountain roads leading into town. The brother of one of the victims rolls into town in his hot rod to investigate his brother's death.

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Know any good movies to watch like The California Kid 1974. With a similar plot or stoyline. Suggest it.

Six Pack

Stopping briefly in a small Texas town, an itinerant race car driver finds that his stock car, on a trailer behind his motor home, has just been quickly and expertly stripped. He chases down the miscreants, who turn out to be six orphan children. He has no recourse to the law, for the corrupt local sheriff takes most of the proceeds of their thievery in exchange for not putting them in an orphanage. They are charming rogues who are in turn charmed by him. Disliking their arrangement with the sheriff, they stow away with him, and he finds himself becoming a reluctant stepfather. Thanks to their enthusiasm and incredible mechanical know-how, he begins to make a name for himself on the racing circuit. But the sheriff doesn't take kindly to losing his extra income...

Vanishing Point

When his wife goes into a troubled labor while he is on the road over 1200 miles away James Kowalski, an ex race car driver and a former Army Ranger, attempts to elude police while trying to get home. After numerous chases he turns into a Native American reservation and reflects on his life, and his wife. He heads off to break through a police roadblock.

Wheels of Terror

A small town is terrorized by an unknown stranger who kidnaps and abuses little girls. When her only child is kidnapped right in front of her, the school bus driver begins the desperate chase to catch the criminal.

White Lightning

An ex con teams up with federal agents to help them with breaking up a moonshine ring.

The Wraith

Packard Walsh and his motorized gang control and terrorize an Arizona desert town where they force drivers to drag-race so they can 'win' their vehicles. After Walsh beats the decent teenager Jamie Hankins to death after finding him with his girlfriend, a mysterious power creates Jake Kesey, an extremely cool motor-biker who has a car which is invincible. Jake befriends Jamie's girlfriend Keri Johnson, takes Jamie's sweet brother Bill under his wing and manages what Sheriff Loomis couldn't; eliminate Packard's criminal gang the hard way...

Redline

A gorgeous young automobile fanatic--and front to the hottest unsigned band on the West coast--finds herself caught up in illegal drag-racing competitions organized by exotic car fanatics

The Car

The film is set in the fictional Utah community of Santa Ynez, which is being terrorized by a mysterious black coupe that appears out of nowhere and begins running people down. After the car kills off the town's Sheriff, it becomes the job of Captain Wade Parent to stop the murderous driver.

Fast X

Over many missions and against impossible odds, Dom Toretto and his family have outsmarted, out-nerved and outdriven every foe in their path. Now, they confront the most lethal opponent they've ever faced: A terrifying threat emerging from the shadows of the past who's fueled by blood revenge, and who is determined to shatter this family and destroy everything—and everyone—that Dom loves, forever.

The Choppers

A gang of teenage delinquents terrorize a small community by stealing cars and stripping them for parts, then selling the parts to a crooked junkyard owner. The police and an insurance company investigator set out to break up the gang.

Dirty Mary Crazy Larry

Down-on-their-luck racers Larry and Deke steal from a supermarket manager to buy a car that will help them advance their racing chances. Their escape does not go as planned when Larry's one-night stand, Mary, tags along for the ride.

The Gladiator

A road warrior vigilante avenges his brother's death at the hands of a crazy motorist by using his souped-up pickup to apprehend drunken drivers and others who abuse their driving privileges.

Bullies

When the peaceful Morris family move to a small town and buy the town grocery store, they run afoul of the Cullen family. The Cullen's have been bullying the town's folk for years, and now they are harassing the Morris family every chance they get. Matt meanwhile meets and starts seeing a lot of Becky who also likes him. Unfortunately her last name is Cullen, and when the rest of the family finds out about their relationship, they decide to get even, and their harassment is elevated to vicious assault.

Highwaymen

James Cray watched as his wife was killed by Fargo, a hit-and-run serial murderer. After severely injuring Fargo and going to prison for several years, James is now determined to avenge his wife's death. He drives across the country looking for Fargo's 1972 Cadillac Eldorado, which the now-disabled killer has turned into a rolling death trap. James' search is helped by a state traffic officer and a singer with her own agenda.

Ruckus

Madoc County is a quiet and peaceful place until vagrant Kyle Hanson arrives. The people of Madoc County are repelled by his appearance and want to chase him out of the city. Unfortunately for them, Kyle Hanson is a former Vietnam elite soldier and he uses his skills to fight back.

Black Cadillac

Three young men become terrorized in a high-speed car chase with a mysterious pursuant.

Return to Macon County

In 1958, two teenagers take their pride and joy, a hopped-up Chevy, and start a cross-country journey to enter it in the National Championship drag races in California. Along the way they hook up with a pretty but dingy waitress who quits her job and hops in their car--and turns out to be more trouble than they thought--drag-race a gang of town punks who lose to to them and then accuse them of cheating, and come up against a local cop who is obsessed with putting these two "juvenile delinquents" in jail.

Double Nickels

Two highway patrolmen think they are working on the side repossessing cars. But eventually, they realize that they have been tricked and are actually stealing the cars.

Heart Like a Wheel

Shirley Muldowney is determined to be a top-fuel drag racer, although no woman has ever raced them before. Despite the high risks of this kind of racing and the burden it places on her family life, she perseveres in her dream.

Grand Prix

The story tells about the confrontation of four first-class racers of Formula 1. Each of the competitors had their own additional motivation to become a champion. Their world is a risk and extreme, fast driving on the highway. The taste of adrenaline is what race lovers live. Outside of competition, they all experience personal dramas and upheavals, and the more important the desired title becomes for them.

The Gumball Rally

A group of people from different backgrounds have one thing in common: when they hear the world "gumball" whispered by one of the others, they know that it's time for the Gumball Rally: a no-holds barred, secret, winner-take-all rally across the USA.

Hot Rod

A young man builds a hot rod despite the disapproval of his father, a Juvenile Court judge. Circumstantial evidence points to the innocent teenager when his car is involved in a hit-and-run accident and he must reconcile with his father.

Hot Rod

A freewheeling drag racer enters a local championship meet and finds himself head-to-head with the tyrannical town boss who has already arranged for his own son to win.

The Last American Hero

A young hell raiser quits his moonshine business and tries to become the best NASCAR racer the south has ever seen. Loosely based on the true story of NASCAR driver Junior Johnson.

Macon County Line

A vengeful Southern sheriff is out for blood after his wife is brutally killed by a pair of drifters. Low-budget film set in Georgia in 1953 and at the time of release, purported to be based on a true story.

Speed Demon

In this supernatural take on The Fast and the Furious, college student Jesse returns home only to find that his old stomping ground has been overrun by a gang of street racers that dabbles in the black arts. But things take a bloody turn for the gang members when a supercharged muscle car starts running them down. Can Jesse stop the fuel-injected killing machine and unmask the mysterious driver?

Thunder Alley

Stock car racer Tommy Callahan is forced to join Pete Madsen's thrill circus after his blackouts cause a fatal accident that gets him thrown off the circuit.

Trucks

Based on the short story by Stephen King, this tells the tale of trucks suddenly coming to life and attacking their owners.

The Car: Road to Revenge

In a dilapidated cyberpunk city plagued by crime and corruption, an unscrupulous District Attorney is savagely murdered and tossed out of a building onto his brand new car. Mysteriously, the District Attorney and his car come back to life as a single being with a thirst for vengeance. The eerie driver-less car embarks on a vicious rampage exacting revenge on the criminals who murdered him. The Car: Road to Revenge is the stylized sequel to the unconventional horror cult classic The Car (1977), and features an homage to the original with the return of Ronny Cox as the Mechanic.

Duel

Traveling businessman David Mann angers the driver of a rusty tanker while crossing the California desert. A simple trip turns deadly, as Mann struggles to stay on the road while the tanker plays cat and mouse with his life.

Rolling Vengeance

A truck driver builds a special, eight-ton monster truck to help get revenge against the rednecks who killed his family.

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Cold Steel

On Christmas Eve, Johnny Modine's father is murdered by a psycho cut-throat. The cop swears bloody revenge, though he's taken off the case. He doesn't suspect yet that he's also the target in a diabolic plan of revenge.

Terror Trap

Driving to a weekend getaway, a car breakdown strands young couple Don and Nancy (David James Elliot and Heather Marsden) while passing through a small, rural Louisiana town. Finding the couple on the roadside, the towns inhospitable Sheriff Taylor (Jeff Fahey) tells them therell be no one to repair their car before morning. He directs them to a nearby motel for the night run by Carter (Michael Madsen). Checking into the seedy, rundown establishment, Don and Nancy have no way of knowing how this place deals with outsiders. Badge aside, the Sherriff answers to Carter, as do a gang of twisted, masked kidnappers, torturers, and killers. By the time Don and Nancy realize whats happening, its too late to flee. They must fight to survive the night, or be the next victims of the Terror Trap...

Phantom Racer

Seventeen years after being killed in a fiery accident, a racing car driver returns from the dead to seek vengeance on his enemies.

4.5 / 10 1987 Action
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Banzai Runner

A highway patrolman goes after a ring of hit-and-run drivers known as "Banzai runners," who have fast, expensive cars and stage illegal, dangerous high-speed races on the freeways at night.

Born to Race

Born To Race is the story of Danny Krueger, a rebellious young street racer on a collision course with trouble. After an accident at an illegal street race, he is sent to a small town to live with his estranged father, a washed up NASCAR racer. When Danny decides to enter the NHRA High School Drags, he's forced to seek his father's help in taking down the local hot shot.

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