Top 10 Lamborghinis From Hollywood Movies

One thing many of us missed over the past year and a half was the ability to go to the movies, stuff our faces with concession snacks, and turn our brains off for two or more hours. But while we’re waiting for all the previously delayed projects of the pandemic to find new avenues for release, we thought it would be a great time to look back at 10 movies that featured Lamborghini’s supercars in both major and minor roles.

For this list, we didn’t limit the timeframe to any specific decade or genre. We also didn’t limit what kind of Lamborghini this list needed to include so that we could fill this list with a wider variety of on-screen supercars from the raging bull. With that said, here are 10 of the most striking, most significant, or just downright awesome appearances of Lamborghini cars from the movies.

10. The Transporter 2 (2005): 2004 Lamborghini Murcielago Roadster

While only on screen for all of 3 minutes, the 2004 Lamborghini Murcielago Roadster driven by Jason Statham’s character in The Transporter 2 was the clear star of the show and was shot as such. Usually, in movies, the most you’ll get is a closeup through the windscreen of the character “driving” the car. But with the Transporter series, the cars are treated as co-stars. Because of that, the movie’s 3-minute scene of Statham aggressively driving the black Roadster was explicitly shot to show off all the angles of the Italian bull roaring through the streets of Miami, Florida.

One particularly famous moment involves the Roadster bypassing a toll gate to get onto the Rickenbacker Causeway bridge by driving under it. Chasing his target, Jason Statham’s character ends up drag racing the Murcielago Roadster against a Gulfstream jet down a private airfield runway, grabbing onto the nose gear just as the plane takes off. Ultimately, the Roadster meets a fiery end as it crashes through a “Miami” sign. A shame, but also an incredibly memorable appearance.

9. The Wolf Of Wall Street (2013): 1988 Lamborghini Countach LP5000 QV 25th Anniversary Edition

In the 1980s, if you succeeded in becoming wealthy very quickly, one of the things you often did was buy something that showed off your wealth. For Jordan Belfort, portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio, that something is a 1988 Lamborghini Countach LP5000 QV 25th Anniversary Edition. Apart from being a mouthful, it was a special edition car with some redesigned bodywork by a little-known guy named Horacio Pagani.

One of the movie’s most famous moments is when Belfort, after taking a large amount of illicit drugs that don’t seem to be working, races to a country club to make a call on a public payphone. In the middle of the conversation, those drugs kick in, and Belfort bypasses all stages of a buzz to go, as his character puts it, “straight to the drooling phase.” He attempts to drive home, and in his mind, he makes it perfectly fine. In reality, though, he has completely totaled the car.

While many of the shots of the Countach are actually kit cars, there was a real Countach LP5000 QV 25th Anniversary Edition used in the film for the beauty shots. After all of the kit cars were damaged beyond repair or destroyed in the filming of the drug-induced-bad-driving part, a reshoot was needed for part of it, so the real car was used. It sustained moderate body damage, but the frame and chassis stood up very well to the abuse, and the car was subsequently repaired.

8. Cannonball Run (1981): 1979 Lamborghini Countach LP400S

One of a few flicks from the 1970s and 1980s that focused almost entirely on motor vehicles, Cannonball Run borrowed ideas from b-movies like Death Race and put them into a slightly cleaner, more mainstream kind of movie. It was still essentially a carsploitation film, but it still managed to get a theatrical release.

Throughout the movie, two women that perfectly fit the 1970s “bombshell” stereotype are participating in the Cannonball Run—a race across the United States from Connecticut to California (incidentally, this was an actual illegal race that took place in 1979). They drive a 1979 Lamborghini Countach LP400S with all the options, including the massive V-wing on the back and the very-rarely-seen front spoiler with secondary spotlights. Part of the movie’s comedy (and, let’s be honest, sex appeal) is that the two women, portrayed by Tara Buckman and Adrienne Barbeau, wore exceptionally tight jumpsuits and would, ahem, unzip them a little when stopped by the police.

But what puts this car on our top 10 list is the journey it went on after the film was made. For several years, it was owned by Ron Rice—the founder of Hawaiian Tropic. Later on, it showed up at a Concours d’Elegance in 2004, and the organizer of that event, who had seen Cannonball Run multiple times as a kid, started the process to buy it the moment he knew what it was. It is now in a private collection, owned by that same movie buff. Talk about giving the fans what they wanted!

7. Need For Speed (2014): 2010 Lamborghini Sesto Elemento

In the history of movies based on video games, we can probably agree that most of them are pretty terrible adaptations. While we won’t debate which films were actually decent and landed the idea of the video game perfectly (*cough* Hitman *cough*), the movie that was based on Electronic Arts’ Need for Speed driving games mostly just gave DreamWorks and Reliance a reason to toss around a lot of money to acquire supercars and hypercars—or at least license kit cars built to look like their models—for the film.

One of those cars was a privately owned 2010 Lamborghini Sesto Elemento, which was used for only one scene. The car is rumored to be one of only two in all of North America, so this was a pretty big deal. The scene in question took place at the starting grid of the climactic race and involved a shot from inside the car done with a small digital cinema camera. The real car was also used to obtain engine and exhaust recordings so that the sound effects in the movie would seem as real as possible.

During stunt scenes, kit cars were used that had the same body shape as the Sesto Elemento, with “carbon fiber” appliques put on top of metal and plastic “body panels.” Yet, for the closeup during the start of the race, that is a 100% real Sesto Elemento on the screen—the only time it has ever been seen in a Hollywood movie before or since. As a condition, the owner was the only person allowed to drive it to and from the set, and it was never to be started or driven by anyone else, even when used for shooting.

As a fun side note, the only other true supercar that appears in the film is the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren 722 Roadster, a pre-production model owned by Mercedes-Benz themselves. All of the other companies involved, such as Koenigsegg, Bugatti, and Ferrari, gave license to have kit cars built resembling their models.

6. The Dark Knight (2008): 2007 Lamborghini Murcielago LP640

Batman, as a character, is all about symbolism. He dresses as a bat because they represent the fear in his past—but when he’s not in his armored bat-suit, he’s a billionaire playboy, and what symbolizes that better than one of the finest bulls to emerge from Sant’Agata Bolognese?

What made the 2007 Lamborghini Murcielago LP640‘s appearance in The Dark Knight even better was that when Warner Bros. and Christopher Nolan went to Lambo HQ in Italy and very politely asked if they would provide the car for a chase sequence in the film, Lamborghini over-delivered. The company loved the idea of Bruce Wayne driving one of their cars so much that they provided three identical LP640’s specially built for the film.

One of those Murcielago LP640s was driven by vehicular stunt specialists for the shots of the car weaving in and out of traffic. A second was fitted with several digital cameras and was driven personally by Christian Bale, who had received extensive driving training a few years before for the film Equilibrium so that he could drive at pace while still in character. This ability clearly worked in his favor for The Dark Knight, as he does get up to some serious speeds during parts of the chase sequence.

And at the very end of the chase sequence, when you see the Murcielago LP640 getting T-boned in a crash? That is a real LP640 getting crashed into! Frankly, the marketing worked, as Lamborghini received a jump in orders for many of the Murcielago’s different models and forms after the movie was released. And the crashed Murcielago was sold to a private owner who collects film memorabilia, so in the end, it wasn’t a total loss.

5. The Italian Job (1969): 1969 Lamborghini Miura P400S (chassis 3586)

The movie opens on the alps on the borders of Italy and France. A V12 can be heard approaching as the camera continues to pan down, and then the Miura P400S drives into view. For the next four minutes, as the opening music starts up and the opening credits are superimposed, multiple shots of the Miura simply doing what it was designed to do—carving up an Italian mountain road—play out.

The car for the film was one of the first Miura P400S production cars to roll off the line and was dispatched immediately to the Great Saint Bernard pass with its odometer disconnected and the white seats swapped for black test seats. But since the time frame was so narrow for filming, the white headrests were famously retained. The car was driven to the set by Enzo Moruzzi, who worked in Lamborghini’s sales department, and he drove during most of the scenes where Rossano Brazzi, the actor playing Roger Beckerman in the film, was not seen.

What makes the production even more amazing is that the entire sequence was shot in one day. Cameras were placed on the car in cinematic locations (back then, they used real film cameras, no tiny GoPros). Then Enzo would race up the pass, where a crew would turn the cameras off at the top and drive back down. The cameras would be moved to the next mounting location, and he would do it again and again for nearly 7 hours. Not bad for working in the Lamborghini sales department!

Another fun fact is that the wrecked Miura seen after the famous tunnel crash (where you can only see a pyrotechnic charge go off) is also a real Miura that was crashed by its owner—but not a P400S. Since Lamborghini was building that owner a new Miura, they provided the wrecked car for the movie.

4. Exit Wounds (2001): 1999 Lamborghini Diablo VT Roadster

Exit Wounds is a martial arts action film that was part of a series of three films directed by Polish director Andrzej Bartkowiak and produced by Joel Silver at the turn of the millennium. These films featured famous martial arts actors, used almost entirely hip-hop soundtracks, and took place in urban environments. Exit Wounds is often considered the weakest of the three movies, but it did feature one hell of a Lamborghini.

The late DMX played Latrell Walker, a drug dealer in Detroit’s inner city who is looking to upgrade his wheels from an original series Hummer to something a bit faster. Walking into an exotics dealership, he and his comic relief sidekick T.K., played by Anthony Anderson, start to look around the showroom. After a few minutes, Latrell spots the silver 1999 Diablo VT Roadster, and after a few back-and-forth lines with the sales guy who is trying to get them out of the dealership, he buys it on the spot with cash.

The other two movies that Bartkowiak made in the series were the commercially successful Romeo Must Die and the cult classic Cradle 2 The Grave. DMX appeared in all three and provided a song for each soundtrack.

3. Furious 7 (2015): 2013 Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4

The Fast And The Furious 7 (known by its shorter title Furious 7) featured an ensemble cast of cars and actors. Ever since the first movie all the way back in 2001, the series has been increasing the profile of the cars involved—and Furious 7, which has a major part of the story take place in Abu Dhabi, was no exception.

While not as major of a center of wealth as Dubai, Abu Dhabi is still a place where supercars and hypercars are hardly out of place. One of the characters in the movie, Deckard Shaw, lives in Abu Dhabi and can be seen driving a 2013 Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4 around the city.

The most interesting fact about the Aventador’s appearance in this movie was that it was meant to be the second film in which Lamborghini collaborated with filmmakers to feature one of their flagship models—the first being The Dark Knight Rises. Unfortunately, due to Paul Walker’s death, the movie was delayed by almost a year and a half while reshoots were done to properly retire his character.

2. Transformers: The Last Knight (2017): 2016 Lamborghini Centenario LP770-4

For the second limited-edition Lamborghini on this list, the 2017 movie Transformers: The Last Knight features the first appearance in the live-action movies of fan-favorite Autobot Hot Rod. Originally appearing in the movie as a 1975 Citroen DS, he upgrades to a 2016 Lamborghini Centenario LP770-4 when he sees one racing by while “escorting” Vivianne to high tea with Sir Edmund Burton.

This marks the first, and so far only, movie to feature this extremely limited-edition car, and for the driving sequence described above, an actual Centenario was used. The studio received permission to perform a laser scan of the entire car for the rest of the film, which was then used in all other sequences where Hot Rod appeared.

While the actual Centenario was only on screen for a few brief seconds, the computer-generated Centenario enjoyed a fair amount of screen time since Hot Rod is one of the movie’s primary characters. He is Bumblebee’s trusted friend, and during a desperate escape through London, he is seen quite often as the lead car protecting the people “driving” Bumblebee in his Chevrolet Camaro SS form.

1. Dr. Strange (2016): 2014 Lamborghini Huracan Coupe with partial 1016 Industries LP610 Body Kit

During the development of the MCU’s Dr. Strange, there was a fairly involved debate about what car Steven Strange, the wealthy and somewhat egotistical neurosurgeon played by Benedict Cumberbatch, would drive. By the time the movie was conceived, it had been fairly well established that Tony Stark drove Audi R8’s, Natasha Romanoff preferred a black Corvette C7, and Nick Fury liked American SUVs.

The only major supercar nations not yet tapped were England and Italy, and it was very close between an Aston Martin or a Lamborghini. However, the choice was made to give Dr. Strange a Lamborghini, since only one year before that the most expensive Lamborghini concept car ever produced was unveiled with an extremely appropriate name: the Egoista.

To sharpen up the egotism of Steven Strange’s character, Marvel Studios had the actual Huracan Coupe used for the movie fitted with a partial pre-production version of 1016 Industries’ recently announced LP610 Huracan body kit. The kit is minimalistic in its upgrades, yet reprofiles the front splitter slightly, adds a sports hood, and, with the full kit, an aggressive wing and reprofiled diffuser at the rear. The perfect egotistical vehicle, it fits right in with the breakdown of Dr. Strange’s character—quite literally, since he gets into an accident with it partway through the film!

More Hot Cars In Cool Movies

That wraps up our list of top Lamborghini appearances in the movies—but Hollywood has featured plenty of other supercars in various flicks over the years. If you’re hungry for more, check out this list of the Top 12 Best Car Movies Ever and feast your eyes on some truly impressive automobiles. Film buffs and car lovers alike—start your engines!