“The world doesn’t want to be saved.” So says Frankenstein, David Carradine’s warped freedom fighter, in Death Race 2000, the campy (but serious!), fun (but violent!), farcical (but prescient!) sci-fi actioner.

| Apr 4, 2025

Director Paul Bartel squeezes all he can out of the film’s modest budget, putting together some thrilling race sequences and visualizing a dystopian future that admittedly looks cheap at times but also shows insightful imagination.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 28, 2024

Impossible to defend but easy to enjoy.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 17, 2023

Could it be argued that the movie is "so bad that it's good"? I suppose, especially if you're a connoisseur of cinematic guano. For me, Death Race is merely bad.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Mar 1, 2021

Director Paul Bartel stretches all of his limited resources into an unexpectedly amusing bit of schlock that, not surprisingly, would become a cult hit.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Aug 29, 2020

I was torn between walking out immediately and staying to witness a spectacle more dismaying than anything on the screen: the way small children were digging gratuitous bloodshed.

| Original Score: 0/4 | Apr 29, 2018

A movie that has a little bit of everything, and it's easily the best version of itself that could possibly be put together.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Apr 22, 2013

A goofy piece of over-the-top mayhem with half a brain.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 9, 2011

A terrifically entertaining movie, and a sharp, funny social commentary from start to finish.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Oct 16, 2010

Roger Corman is the master of doing a lot with a little, and Death Race 2000 is but one shining example of the filmmaker's know-how.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 2, 2010

Director Paul Bartel perfected his brand of blackhearted humor on this ragged production, overcoming budgetary restraint with inspired moments of B movie spectacle...

| Jun 27, 2010

Behold the power of cheese!

| Original Score: B- | Jun 17, 2010

The conception and execution are top-notch low-budget trash.

| Original Score: B+ | Aug 25, 2008

Death Race 2000 is as Corman as his B-grade action pics come, with cars flying through the frame, blood spilling behind them, and overnight pit-stops for some sex ("navigators" in each car keep their drivers juiced up).

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 7, 2008

One of King Corman's finest pictures.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 6, 2008

It has a comic strip premise which is neverthless wholly credible in a sick sort of way.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 6, 2008

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 1, 2008

Unwatchable car wreck of an exploitation film.

| Original Score: C- | Jan 16, 2008

Fun, fun, fun!

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 26, 2007

The story, about a road race in the not-too-distant future for which the drivers are given points for running down pedestrians, becomes an elaborate and telling fantasy about our peculiar popular entertainments. Fine work carved from minimal materials.

| Mar 28, 2007