Baby Driver (2017)

Baby Driver is a 2017 American action crime film written and directed by Edgar Wright. The film stars Ansel Elgort as Baby, a supremely talented young getaway driver who works for a crime boss named Doc, played by Kevin Spacey, to pay off a debt. Baby suffers from tinnitus following a childhood car accident and constantly listens to music on his iPod to drown out the ringing in his ears — a condition that serves as the foundation for the film's most distinctive creative choice: every action sequence, car chase, and gunfight is meticulously choreographed and edited to synchronize with the film's carefully curated soundtrack.

When Baby falls in love with a waitress named Debora, played by Lily James, he plans one final job to secure his freedom, but the heist goes catastrophically wrong. Edgar Wright spent over two decades developing Baby Driver, creating detailed animatics for every major sequence that precisely timed the action to specific songs. The result was a film in which the rhythm of the music and the rhythm of the editing were inseparable — engines rev on the beat, gunshots punctuate drum hits, and characters' footsteps match the tempo.

The opening getaway scene, choreographed to The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's "Bellbottoms," was filmed with precision stunt driving on Atlanta streets. Jamie Foxx, Jon Hamm, and Eiza González rounded out the ensemble as Baby's volatile criminal associates. Baby Driver earned $226 million worldwide on a $34 million budget and received three Academy Award nominations, including Best Film Editing and Best Sound Mixing.

The film demonstrated that creative ambition and mainstream entertainment were not mutually exclusive.