Stars: Steve McQueen, Siegfried Rauch, Elga Andersen
Director: Lee H. Katzin
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars
There are a long history of actors who largely got bored with being movie stars, and spent huge swaths of their careers basically just doing movie stardom as a side hustle. Marlon Brando, Jean Seberg, Jane Fonda, & Sean Penn all clearly wished they could be full-time activists, rather than movie stars themselves. Orson Welles spent his peak stardom years running across the country doing magic shows with Rita Hayworth & Marlene Dietrich. Hedy Lamarr may have had the oddest side hustle, essentially inventing GPS. For Steve McQueen, the coolest of movie stars, that side hustle was race-car driving, the coolest of sports. McQueen frequently competed in car & motorcycle racing tournaments, and would incorporate his love of stunt driving into his films like Bullitt and The Great Escape. No film, though, encapsulated his love of it quite like Le Mans, an expensive fictionalization of the famed French endurance car race that has been fictionalized in recent films like Ford v. Ferrari and Gran Turismo.
Each month, as part of our 2026 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the men & women who created the Boom!-Pow!-Bang! action films that would come to dominate the Blockbuster Era of cinema. This month, our focus is on Steve McQueen: click here to learn more about Mr. McQueen (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.
(Spoilers Ahead) Le Mans is a weird film to summarize, in part because it's not really a movie with a traditional narrative. The film is about Michael Delaney (McQueen), who is about to race the 24 hours of Le Mans when he sees the widow Lisa (Andersen) of a driver that died in the previous year's tournament, and has flashbacks to the crash of his former competitor, whose death Lisa holds him responsible for. This is one of several storylines that are told in an almost cross-plot anthology-style bit of storytelling, with everyone underlining the intoxicating nature of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and how it is seen as one of the pinnacles of athletics, and how important it is for their sponsor (Porsche) to get a 1-2 finish that will make the company look like the fastest car in the world.
The movie is weird, though, because for long stretches of it nothing happens. This is, I'm going to be honest, also my reaction to car-racing in general (I am not the audience for this picture), but I was struck throughout it that it was meant to be melancholy and almost Malick-esque before Malick was even a thing. We get extended sequences with wordless dialogue, and not just looking at cars passing each other on a track...it's also random stares between Andersen & McQueen, which might be cribbed from a French New Wave picture if you're being generous, but in reality feels more so like they didn't know how to put a story in here, and the whole goal of the film is to watch Steve McQueen sexily driving around cars the average audience member couldn't even buy if they sold their house.
That being said, on a technical level this film works really well. The editing, sound work, cinematography, and especially the stunt driving are top notch. When you have the film in the throes of competition, especially toward the end, it really draws you in and you can almost get why people will literally watch a car drive for 24 hours on their television each year. But those documentary-style touches (including footage from actual Le Mans races), are more interesting in a technical capacity, and only hold your attention for so long.
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