Baby Driver is a 2017 action film written and directed by Edgar Wright. It stars Ansel Elgort as Baby, a getaway driver seeking freedom from a life of crime with his girlfriend Debora (Lily James). Kevin Spacey, Jon Hamm, Eiza González, Jon Bernthal and Jamie Foxx appear in supporting roles. Eric Fellner and his Working Title Films partner Tim Bevan produced Baby Driver in association with Big Talk Productions' Nira Park. Sony and TriStar Pictures handled commercial distribution of the film. Baby Driver was financed through tax subsidies from the Georgia state government and a co-production pact between TriStar and MRC.
Wright conceived Baby Driver in the mid-1990s, and it became a long-gestating passion project. Originally based in Los Angeles, Wright chose Atlanta as the film's setting after the studio secured tax credits to subsidize production costs, integrating the city's ethos into an important storytelling device. Principal photography took place in Atlanta from February to May 2016. Production involved the planning of meticulously coordinated stunts, choreography, and in-camera effects. Thematic studies of Baby Driver examine patterns of color symbolism and Baby's evolving morality.
Baby Driver premiered at the South by Southwest festival on March 11, 2017, followed by releases in North America and the United Kingdom on June 28. Critics praised the film's craftsmanship and actors, though sometimes disapproved of aspects of the writing such as plot development. The National Board of Review selected Baby Driver as one of the top films of the year. It earned $227million globally, bolstered by positive word-of-mouth support and flagging interest in blockbuster franchises. Baby Driver was nominated for numerous awards, including three Academy Awards, two BAFTA Film Awards (winning one), two Critics' Choice Awards (winning one), and a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for Elgort, and won several other honors, chiefly for technical achievement. The success of Baby Driver spurred speculation in the media about a sequel, which remains tentatively planned as of 2026.
Plot In Atlanta, Miles, self-named "Baby", is a young getaway driver who lost his parents in a car crash that left him with tinnitus, and finds catharsis in music. He ferries crews of robbers assembled by kingpin Doc to pay off a debt as recompense for theft of a car containing Doc's illicit goods. Between jobs, he remixes snippets of recorded conversations and cares for his deaf foster father Joseph. At Bo’s Diner, a local restaurant, he meets a waitress named Debora, and they start dating.
His next robbery goes awry after an armed bystander chases them down, but Baby evades him and the police. Having paid his debt, Baby quits his life of crime and starts delivering pizzas. Baby takes Debora out on a date at a fancy restaurant where he runs into Doc, who pays for their meal. Meeting Baby outside, Doc coerces him to join a planned US Post Office heist under threat of retaliation if he refuses. The crew consists of easygoing Buddy, his sharpshooter wife Darling, and trigger-happy psychopath Bats, who takes a disliking to Baby. While the crew attempts to purchase illegal arms at a rendezvous from a contact of Doc's, the Butcher, Bats recognizes the Butcher and his men are undercover police and opens fire, resulting in most of the dealers being killed. Afterward, Bats makes Baby stop at Debora's diner, unaware of Baby and Debora's romance. Baby, aware of Bats's homicidal habit, stops him from killing her to avoid paying.
Doc is furious, revealing that the dealers were dirty cops on his payroll. He decides to cancel the heist, but Bats, Buddy and Darling disagree. Doc lets Baby decide; he chooses to go through with it. Baby attempts to slip away late that night, hoping to take Debora and leave. He is stopped by Buddy and Bats, who have discovered his recordings and believe he is a police informant; when they and Doc hear his mixtapes, they are convinced of his innocence.
During the heist, Bats kills a security guard. Disgusted, Baby refuses to drive away, causing Bats to hit him. Baby rams the car into a rebar which impales Bats, killing him. The three flee on foot. After the police kill Darling in a shootout, Buddy furiously blames Baby for her death and plans to kill him. Baby steals a car and flees to his apartment. After leaving Joseph at an assisted living home with his heist earnings, Baby rushes to Bo's for Debora, where Buddy is waiting. Baby shoots Buddy and flees with Debora as police reinforcements swarm the restaurant.
At the safe house, Doc refuses Baby's pleas for help, but relents when he sees Debora consoling him. Doc supplies them with cash and an escape route out of the country. The three are confronted by the Butcher's vengeful henchmen in the parking garage, but Doc kills them all. Buddy ambushes them with a stolen police car and kills Doc. A cat-and-mouse game ensues until Buddy has Baby at his mercy. He shoots next to both Baby's ears, temporarily deafening him, but the distraction allows Debora to subdue Buddy with a crowbar. After Baby shoots him in the leg, Buddy falls to his death.
Debora and Baby drive away together on a scenic road. Baby surrenders after they encounter a police roadblock. At Baby's trial, Joseph, Debora, and other individuals Baby helped testify as character witnesses. He is sentenced to twenty-five years in prison, with a parole hearing after five. Debora stays in contact with Baby during his incarceration, sending him postcards while he dreams of one day reuniting. Five years later, Baby reunites with Debora after being released from prison.
Cast
Ansel Elgort as Miles "Baby":A young getaway driver with an intense passion for music. Elgort regarded the character as an innocent "younger than his years, deep down". Edgar Wright and the producers at Working Title Films began contemplating the lead role well before they obtained funding for Baby Driver. Elgort, John Boyega, and Logan Lerman were among a raft of potential candidates considered for star billing. Elgort auditioned for the part because he found the screenplay compelling. He auditioned several times, but was hired based on a taped audition where he lip synced and danced to the Commodores' 1977 single "Easy". Wright was so impressed that the song was added to the film's soundtrack. The writer-director explained his selection of Elgort: "There's an element of an old soul in Ansel and that was something I thought connected with what I had already written." Hudson Meek as young Baby Lily James as Debora: A waitress employed at Bo's Diner who becomes Baby's girlfriend. Emma Stone was an early candidate for the role during development. Kevin Spacey as "Doc": The mysterious kingpin of an Atlanta-based crime syndicate to whom Baby owes a debt. Spacey's involvement in Baby Driver was announced in the press in November 2015. Jon Hamm as Jason "Buddy" van Horn: A laid-back criminal, former stockbroker and the husband of Darling. He and his wife are both members of Doc's crew of bank robbers and Buddy was brought into the criminal underworld by a drug habit. His impulsive decisions are the result of a mid-life crisis. Wright envisioned Buddy as a strong, suave, handsome character à la Doc McCoy (Steve McQueen) in The Getaway (1972) and Jack Foley (George Clooney) in Out of Sight (1998), yet much more sinister. Hamm is the only actor in Baby Driver whose character was written specifically for them, as Wright is a longtime friend and fan of his. The two men first met at a Saturday Night Live afterparty in 2008. Hamm took part in a table read several years before Baby Driver was commissioned by a studio. Eiza González as Monica "Darling" Costello: Buddy's young, vivacious wife and the only woman in Doc's heist crew. She and Buddy form an intensely intimate, Bonnie and Clyde-esque pairing. Describing her as a vapid "crook space-cadet woman who has no attachment to reality", the actress joined the production in December 2015. Jamie Foxx as Leon "Bats" Jefferson III: Doc's particularly sadistic, ruthless henchman, who has little regard for the people in his way. Foxx was a casting choice recommended to Wright, although he had reservations and felt the actor would not be enthusiastic about a supporting role. Foxx was fascinated with the film's artistic direction, and joined the project thanks to the support of Quentin Tarantino. He modeled Bats after a longtime friend he first met at a Los Angeles comedy club in his youth. Jon Bernthal as Griffin "Griff": One of Doc's toughest henchmen responsible for the security of his heist crew. Bernthal believed criminals were too often stereotyped as incompetent in news media. Therefore, to prepare for his role, the actor consulted with real-life career criminals to get a better grasp on his character and the inner workings of organized crime. He said in an interview, "There's your idiots who hold up a place and get caught because they leave their wallet there, but there's mastermind criminals and they all come in different shapes and sizes and different levels of intellect. I think there are people with real talent and people who take it enormously seriously, and those are the kinds of people I talked to." CJ Jones as Joe: Baby's foster father, who is deaf and a wheelchair user. Casting director Francine Maisler was tasked with hiring a suitable actor to play Joseph. Though Jones was significantly younger than the role called for, he was hired from a handful of prospective actors, most of whom were not deaf. Jones opted not to work with an on-set interpreter until later in production. He also helped Elgort hone his sign language (ASL) with an on-set tutor.
Other cast members include Flea as Eddie "No Nose", Lanny Joon as JD, Sky Ferreira as Baby's biological mother (an aspiring singer), R. Marcus Taylor as Armie, a crooked police officer, Lance Palmer as Baby's biological father (an abusive alcoholic), Big Boi and Killer Mike as restaurant patrons, Paul Williams as "The Butcher", Walter Hill as the voice of a courtroom ASL interpreter, and Jon Spencer as a prison guard. Noel Fielding and Nick Frost have cameos through archive footage on Baby's TV, appearing in the music video for Mint Royale's "Blue Song" (directed by Wright), in which Fielding played a prototypical version of Baby.
Production Development
Baby Driver was a longtime passion project Wright had been developing since 1995, when the writer-director was a struggling 21-year-old filmmaker living in suburban London. He had relocated to London to finish his first professional film, the low-budget western comedy A Fistful of Fingers, and to contemplate his future in entertainment. Wright's repeated listening to Orange (1994), the fourth studio album by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, provided the impetus for Baby Driver. At first he envisioned a high-speed car chase that was prefaced with a dance sequence soundtracked to "Bellbottoms". Though this was ultimately written into the script as the film's opening sequence, Wright's nascent vision was far from a fully realized project. By the time Baby Driver took definite form, the advent of the iPod, Wright's childhood tinnitus, and his reading of Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia (2007), which explores the neuroscience of music, were forces shaping the project's artistic direction.