Drive · reception & legacy

How Drive has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

It won Refn Best Director at Cannes and dazzled critics, but opening-weekend audiences expecting a Fast & Furious-style ride were baffled — it pulled a lousy CinemaScore and even sparked a lawsuit over the trailer. Fifteen years on it's unshakeable internet canon, arguably THE cult film of the 2010s.

What's debated

The eternal Drive fight: transcendent mood piece or style-over-substance posturing — and whether the 'literally me' crowd loves it for exactly the wrong reasons.

Its footprint

The scorpion jacket is a Halloween-costume and poster-wall staple, the Cliff Martinez/Kavinsky/College soundtrack basically detonated the synthwave revival, and Gosling's Driver is a founding father of the 'literally me' meme pantheon.

Where it stands

A top-tier Letterboxd favourite and gateway film — the movie a generation of young cinephiles cites as the one that got them into 'elevated' cinema.

Named by the director

Influences Nicolas Winding Refn has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.

• Alejandro Jodorowsky — Refn dedicated Drive to Jodorowsky, his friend and mentor, whose mystical approach to filmmaking he has repeatedly credited.
• John Hughes — Refn described Drive's tender first half in John Hughes terms — a teen-romance sweetness he deliberately set against the violence.