Le Mans: no words
With Le Mans, Steve McQueen realized his very own idea of a film about race-car drivers: actions, gestures, and looks count for more than words. In the very last scene, when rivals Erich Stahler (Siegfried Rauch) and Michael Delaney (Steve McQueen) cross the finish line in the midst of a roaring crowd—neither victorious, yet both full of respect for each other—a gesture with just two fingers is enough to say it all. Really great cinema can be so ingeniously simple. The movie premiered in 1971 in Indianapolis, where McQueen had grown up. Le Mans was not a box-office success, however. It was too experimental for its time but became a cult classic and blueprint for all racing movies that followed.