I’m curious. What movies have scene where someone is Hot-wiring a car? I can think of the Terminator and Breathless off hand. Anyone else? It’s for a project I’m working on.
The Canadian film Last Night by Don McKellar, co-staring Sandra Oh, has an attempt that fails. Hard to find the film (it is on Canada’s iTunes but not the US’ iTunes) but may be essential for your compilation because they’re trying to emulate what they’ve seen in movies and tv, and then realize it is BS.
Lenora hotwires a truck in Deutschland 86. It is when they are trying to escape the commie guerilla camp (episode 3).
Especially when you consider any car likely still running has a lock that secures the steering wheel into place in addition to turning on and off the ignition. You need a dent puller to yank the lock cylinder out, in addition to hot-wiring.
I once had to hotwire my car -- an old Datsun 210 -- and it was surprisingly easy. The ignition housing and wheel lock were attached by a few screws. It was a simple matter of removing the housing and then bypassing a couple wires. It took a bit longer than 60 seconds, however.
The best example of car hot-wiring I've seen was in the Forest Whitaker film Ghost Dog, where he used a handheld computer to run through all the possible lock combinations for a remote starter. This was before these were common factory options and if it seems unlikely that aftermarket car starters had bad security, just research how easily the vast majority of garage door openers can be hacked. Most of the ones out there just used an 8-bit code, and there were literally children's toys that could be programmed to run through all the codes in seconds.
Charles Bronson hot wires a diesel bulldozer in The Mechanic and then puts it to good use. (43) The Mechanic (9/10) Movie CLIP - Bulldozing! (1972) HD - YouTube
The Terminator by be the best ever in this regard. Reese is resourceful and gets it done. Then it shows the T-800 rip the steering column apart and fire the care up immediately. Good stuff.
Assault on Precinct 13 (and possibly the remake??) Has someone hotwire a car to try escape the siege.