| Director | Steven Spielberg |
|---|---|
| Budget | $450,000 |
David Mann is a middle-aged salesman driving on a business trip. He encounters a dilapidated tanker truck in the Mojave Desert. Mann passes the truck, but the truck roars past him. When Mann overtakes and passes it again, the truck blasts its horn. Mann pulls into a gas station, and shortly after the truck arrives and parks next to him. Mann refuses the station attendant's advice of replacing the radiator hose.
Back on the road, the truck catches up, passes, then blocks Mann whenever he attempts to pass. After antagonizing Mann for some time, the driver waves him past, but Mann nearly hits an oncoming vehicle. He then passes the truck using an unpaved turnout next to the highway. The truck tailgates Mann at increasingly high speeds. Mann crashes into a fence across from a diner. Mann enters the restaurant to compose himself and sees the truck parked outside. He confronts a patron he believes to be the truck driver. The offended patron beats Mann and leaves in a different truck. The pursuing truck leaves seconds later.
Mann resumes his trip and stops to help a stranded school bus, but his front bumper gets caught underneath the bus' rear bumper. The truck appears at the end of a nearby tunnel. Mann flees when the bus driver helps free his car, then stops at a railroad crossing for a freight train. The truck appears from behind and pushes Mann's car into the tracks just as the train clears the intersection. Mann rolls across the tracks and pulls over and the truck continues down the road. Mann slows his pace in hopes the truck will continue on its way, but he encounters it again on the side of the road, waiting for him, and it pulls out in front of him to continue harassing him.
Mann stops at a gas station/roadside animal attraction to call the police and replace his radiator hose. The truck drives into the phone booth and Mann jumps clear, gets into his car, and speeds away. He pulls off the road behind an embankment and the truck drives past. After a long wait, Mann heads off again, but the truck is waiting down the road and chases him up a mountain range. Mann's radiator hose breaks, and the car overheats. He barely makes the summit and rolls downhill with the truck in pursuit. Mann crashes into a cliff wall and barely escapes being crushed by the truck. He managed to limp the car up a dirt road and turns to face the truck in front of a canyon. Mann wedges his briefcase onto the accelerator and steers the car into the oncoming truck, jumping free at the last moment. The truck hits the car, which bursts into flames, and both vehicles plunge over the cliff. Above the canyon, Mann celebrates, then sits at the cliff's edge and throws stones down at the wreckage as the sun sets.