The only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down Adam Savage
The last 50 years have seen a lot of advancements in science, but if we are really honest with ourselves, the most important question has not been answered yet: What is the best Fast & Furious movie and how can I have a perfect drinking game for it?
Since science has failed us, we decided to take matters into our own hands and analyze the Fast & Furious franchise. A group of friends and myself watched all the movies, took notes and we came up with a perfect drinking game for you to enjoy.
Methology
Before we watched all movies we had to come up with a plan. So first we decided on key events that the franchise is known for, that we wanted to track. We came up with the following list:
- ass: a scene mostly showing asses (male and female)
- berbecue: the group is having a barbecue
- beyondRepair: a vehicle is damaged beyond repair
- corona: someone drinks a Corona beer
- dom: someone says "Dom"
- engine: an engine roars
- family: someone says "family"
- han: Han is eating a snack
- metaphor: someone says a car or racing metaphor
- nitro: someone uses nitro
- rap: a rap song plays
- revive: a character previously dead reappears again
- streetRace: a street race occurs
We then made an app for a tablet where we could track all of these events with their timestamps. We also had a button to pause the movie, so we could discuss the events and decide if they counted or not.
Results
So let's see what we found out. Let's first have a look at what events were found in what movie:
As we can see the events are already pretty good, since almost all movies contain most of the events. But let's drill down further and look at a better visualization:
And with that we come to our first conclusion: Objectively Fast & Furious 6, 9 and X are the best movies in the franchise. You may disagree, but the data is clear. In the same vein we can also see that Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw is the worst movie in the franchise. As scientist we can put forward a theory, why this might be the case:
The Fast 6 Furious franchise is in a constant change. The first movies were about street racing, but the later movies are more about heists and saving the world. As the time progresses the movies lean more into what they are known for today and that corresponds with the events we tracked. Also Hobbs & Shaw is an action spin-off, that might be the best Fast & Forious movie of the latter half of the franchise, but is the only movie that doesn't contain a street race and therefor obviously is the worst one.
Alright, so now that we know what happens in which movie, we can use this data to make the ideal drinking game for each movie.
For that we first have to define what make a good drinking game. We decided that a good drinking game has to have a good balance between drinking and watching the movie. We should also have a good amount of drinking events, but not too many, so you pass out in the first 15 minutes. I think about 20-30 events per movie should be the maximum.
NOTE: Drink responsibly. Know your limits.
We can analyze the data and come up with the following table:
Easy:
| Movie | Events | Total Events |
|---|---|---|
| The Fast and the Furious (2001) | Engine | 14 |
| 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) | Engine | 18 |
| The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) | Rap | 19 |
| Fast & Furious - Neues Modell. Originalteile. (2009) | Beyond Repair | 16 |
| Fast & Furious Five (2011) | Dom | 18 |
| Fast & Furious 6 (2013) | Family, Dom | 17 |
| Fast & Furious 7 (2015) | Ass | 19 |
| Fast & Furious 8 (2017) | Family, Nitro | 15 |
| Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw (2019) | Beyond Repair | 15 |
| Fast & Furious 9 (2021) | Rap, Family | 15 |
| Fast & Furious 10/Fast X (2023) | Rap | 14 |
Medium:
| Movie | Events | Total Events |
|---|---|---|
| The Fast and the Furious (2001) | Dom | 23 |
| 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) | Engine, Rap | 27 |
| The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) | Engine | 25 |
| Fast & Furious - Neues Modell. Originalteile. (2009) | Dom | 21 |
| Fast & Furious Five (2011) | Dom, Engine | 28 |
| Fast & Furious 6 (2013) | Family, Dom, Metaphor | 22 |
| Fast & Furious 7 (2015) | Beyond Repair | 26 |
| Fast & Furious 8 (2017) | Dom | 30 |
| Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw (2019) | Beyond Repair, Rap | 21 |
| Fast & Furious 9 (2021) | Rap, Family, Nitro | 20 |
| Fast & Furious 10/Fast X (2023) | Dom | 22 |
Hard:
| Movie | Events | Total Events |
|---|---|---|
| The Fast and the Furious (2001) | Dom | 23 |
| 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) | Engine, Beyond Repair | 33 |
| The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) | Engine | 25 |
| Fast & Furious - Neues Modell. Originalteile. (2009) | Dom | 21 |
| Fast & Furious Five (2011) | Beyond Repair | 31 |
| Fast & Furious 6 (2013) | Beyond Repair | 36 |
| Fast & Furious 7 (2015) | Beyond Repair | 26 |
| Fast & Furious 8 (2017) | Dom | 30 |
| Fast & Furious 9 (2021) | Dom | 34 |
| Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw (2019) | Beyond Repair, Rap | 21 |
| Fast & Furious 10/Fast X (2023) | Dom | 22 |
Insane
| Movie | Events | Total Event Occurrences |
|---|---|---|
| The Fast and the Furious (2001) | ass, barbecue, beyondRepair, corona, dom, engine, family, metaphor, nitro, rap, streetRace | 78 |
| 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) | ass, beyondRepair, engine, metaphor, nitro, rap, streetRace | 65 |
| The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) | ass, beyondRepair, engine, family, han, metaphor, nitro, rap, streetRace | 84 |
| Fast & Furious - Neues Modell. Originalteile. (2009) | ass, beyondRepair, corona, dom, engine, family, metaphor, nitro, rap, streetRace | 64 |
| Fast & Furious Five (2011) | ass, barbecue, beyondRepair, dom, engine, family, metaphor, nitro, rap, streetRace | 84 |
| Fast & Furious 6 (2013) | ass, barbecue, beyondRepair, corona, dom, engine, family, metaphor, nitro, rap, streetRace | 83 |
| Fast & Furious 7 (2015) | ass, beyondRepair, corona, dom, engine, family, metaphor, nitro, rap, revive, streetRace | 95 |
| Fast & Furious 8 (2017) | ass, barbecue, beyondRepair, dom, engine, family, metaphor, nitro, rap, streetRace | 148 |
| Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw (2019) | ass, beyondRepair, family, nitro, rap | 32 |
| Fast & Furious 9 (2021) | ass, barbecue, beyondRepair, corona, dom, engine, family, metaphor, nitro, rap, streetRace | 162 |
| Fast & Furious 10/Fast X (2023) | ass, barbecue, beyondRepair, corona, dom, engine, family, metaphor, nitro, rap, revive, streetRace | 162 |
We can also look the last table in a line chart, that shows the full insanity of these events.
Data
If you want to run your own analysis against our data, you can download it here: SQLite Database
Conclusion
This was a fun science project. We made a custom software for our very specific need that certainly couldn't have been solved with a notebook and a pencil.
When you view this page you can easily get away with the conclusion that we made this project to make fun of these movies, but that's actually not the case. I admire these movies for their ability to change throughout the years while still being entertaining in each and every movie. I'm not saying we should put them on the next voyager record, but I admire them for what they are.