Fast Five Leaving Netflix in November 2026

For a long time, I assumed the Fast & Furious franchise was beneath me. The movies appeared to be nothing more than a series of vapid car commercials and, not being much of a car guy, I was not interested. But during the pandemic, I got pressured into watching the first one and really enjoyed it. Before I knew it, I had watched every installment and could not wait for the next one. That is the power of family.

Including the Hobbs & Shaw spinoff movie, there have been 11 Fast & Furious films to date, with a 12th and final one on the way. While all of them have their moments, Fast Five remains the best for the way it repositioned the franchise, used all the best characters including Paul Walker, and leaned on largely practical effects to take you along for the ride. Fast Five has been streaming on Netflix all summer, but as of Nov. 1 it drives off into the sunset. There has never been a better time to revisit this modern action classic.

How Fast & Furious got to Fast Five

Before Fast Five, the Fast & Furious movies were all about street racing. Vin Diesel’s Dominic Toretto was an illegal street racer and the other characters were his friends, family, and rivals. Paul Walker began as an LAPD officer who went undercover to infiltrate the illegal street racing scene. Then Paul Walker’s character, Brian O’Conner, realized this street racing thing was pretty cool, and he fell in love with Dominic Toretto’s sister, Mia (Jordana Brewster). He became a street racer himself. Brian later became an FBI agent, then went bad again. Fast Five picks up after that second time.

Fast Five was the first movie in the franchise not to focus on street racing. Instead, it is a heist where Dominic Toretto and Brian O’Conner, along with a full crew, plot to steal $100 million from a corrupt businessman so that they can start new lives. Meanwhile, as they hide out in Rio de Janeiro where most of the movie takes place, Dominic Toretto, Brian O’Conner, Mia, and the others are pursued by American DSS Agents for the murder of some DEA agents, a crime they were framed for by the businessman they plan to rob.

Before the big heist takes place, those DSS agents lead by Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) capture Dominic Toretto, Brian O’Conner, and a couple of other crew members. Then, Luke Hobbs’ team is attacked by the businessman and Luke Hobbs’ team dies, making Luke Hobbs realize Dominic Toretto and Brian O’Conner, who saved him, are good dudes. He helps them with the big heist, which famously involves two Dodge Chargers, driven by Dominic Toretto and Brian O’Conner, tethered to a giant bank vault being dragged through the streets of Rio. In the end, they get away with it and become very rich fugitives.

What really makes this movie work is the fact that it is a fairly simple heist story. While some of the plot details may seem convoluted, the story is basically a group of outlaws planning to steal money from a bad guy, making it easy to root for them.

In future movies, Dominic Toretto’s team is repositioned as an elite spy team called upon by the US government whenever a mission requires a group of drivers who can steer very fast. The future movies work and they remain more exciting than the street racing stories, but after Fast Five the movies feel a bit more like Mission: Impossible. Fast Five finds the perfect balance where they are still outlaw racers, but they happen to plan a heist because they hate a rich villain.

The Fast & Furious films feature many great characters. Dominic Toretto is a strong lead, and the crew includes several fun characters who come and go in various films. One of the best characters is Paul Walker’s Brian O’Conner. That is because Paul Walker was charming in the role and because Brian O’Conner’s friendship with Dominic Toretto was the key relationship that shaped the series. That brotherhood gets cemented in Fast Five. It is the first time they are both on the same side the whole time, and it is the movie where Mia is revealed to be pregnant, making Dominic Toretto and Brian O’Conner family.

We see more of their friendship in the sixth and seventh movies, but with Paul Walker’s death partway through Furious 7, some clunky editing was needed to keep him in the film. The work was done very well, but you can still feel how the project was reworked mid-film. After that point, Brian O’Conner remains alive in the Fast & Furious universe, but he decides to settle down with Mia and stays offscreen for the future installments. While the eighth, ninth, and tenth movies that followed are all enjoyable, someone is clearly missing.

The reason people watch these movies is the action, and Fast Five beats all the other films in the franchise. That vault heist, filmed in Puerto Rico to double for Rio, involved real-world destruction and car smashing. While computer-generated imagery was used for some scenes, much of the vault sequence was done with a drivable vault that smashed into various obstacles.

After this film, as the crew moved into superspy territory, the set pieces transcended reality to a much greater degree. That shift brought an even heavier reliance on computer-generated effects. The most notorious example is the scene in F9 where a couple of characters drive a car into space.

From what we know about the upcoming final film, Fast Forever, I bet Fast Five remains the best movie. Recently, Vin Diesel laid out his three big demands for the final film, saying that it should return to Los Angeles, return to street racing, and involve the reunion of Dominic Toretto and Brian O’Conner. While I am fine with going back to Los Angeles, street racing got old by the fourth film, which is why the movies needed to pivot in the first place. And while Furious 7 managed to convincingly revive Paul Walker using his brothers as stand-ins and face replacement, I do not want to see him resurrected again because that approach feels gross and disrespectful. Worse, it would undermine the poetic work done in the seventh film to give Brian O’Conner a proper sendoff.

With all due respect to Vin Diesel, I want a movie that follows the lessons from the best film in the franchise, Fast Five. The big lessons from that movie are that practical effects are better than computer-generated ones and that street racing is kind of lame.

Source: Polygon