[3] The film features an ensemble cast, including Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Jennifer Esposito, William Fichtner, Brendan Fraser, Terrence Howard, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Thandiwe Newton, Michael Peña, Larenz Tate and Ryan Phillippe.

In Los Angeles, Detective Graham Waters and his partner Ria are involved in a minor collision with a car being driven by Kim Lee.

Anthony and Peter, two young Black men, carjack district attorney Rick Cabot and his wife Jean.

While searching for the Cabots' stolen vehicle, Sergeant John Ryan pulls over an SUV driven by a wealthy Black couple, TV director Cameron Thayer and his wife, Christine.

Dixon, a Black man, tells Hansen that a racism complaint would hurt his own career and allows the transfer on the condition that Ryan's conduct not be mentioned.

When the insurance adjuster does not respond quickly enough, Ryan insults her competency by saying that more qualified White men did not get her job because of affirmative action.

In his attempt to rescue the passenger, Ryan sees it is Christine, who recognizes the officer from their earlier incident and frantically resists his assistance.

The van had belonged to Kim Lee and her husband (the man Anthony and Peter accidentally hit), meaning they were involved in human trafficking.

Writer and director Paul Haggis was inspired to make the film after being carjacked by two African-American men at a Blockbuster Video on Wilshire Boulevard while driving home from the premiere of The Silence of the Lambs in February 1991.

[9] Yari offered Haggis $7.5 million to produce the script as a film, on the condition he could assemble an ensemble cast of major stars.

[9] Don Cheadle was the first actor to be cast and also came on board as a producer, which helped attract other big names to the production.

[9] Haggis made up for the reduced budget by taking out three mortgages on his house, cutting back on exterior shots, and reusing locations.

[11] Production was delayed for a week when Haggis had a heart attack while filming a scene, although he defied medical advice to hire a new director.

[7][9][4] In a 2020 interview with Vulture, Thandiwe Newton stated that Haggis ensured she was wearing special protective underwear for the police sexual assault scene, because he wanted it to look "real" from the camera's perspective for Matt Dillon "to go there".

The director's cut of the film was released in a two-disc special edition DVD on April 4, 2006, with more bonus content than the one-disc set.

The site's critical consensus reads, "A raw and unsettling morality piece on modern angst and urban disconnect, Crash examines the dangers of bigotry and xenophobia in the lives of interconnected Angelenos.

[30][31][32][33] Todd McCarthy of Variety wrote, "Specific scenes, especially those involving Dillon as the racially resentful cop who, like everyone else, has his reasons, bristle with tension as the character continuously pushes past conventional limits in abusing his authority and, redeemingly, in his display of uncommon valor.

"[34][28] Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian gave the film three out of five stars, writing, "Crash is a very watchable and well-constructed piece of work...but its daringly supercharged fantasies of racial paranoia and humanist redemption are not to be taken too seriously.

"[35] Joanne Kaufman of the Wall Street Journal opined, "Ultimately, Crash succeeds in spite of itself," noting that at a certain point, it "starts to feel obvious and schematic" but remains "a complex blend of compassion and sorrow".

[37][38][31][39] Ty Burr of the Boston Globe wrote that the film "is one of those multi-character, something-is-rotten-in-Los Angeles barnburners that grab you by the lapels and try desperately to shake you up.

Writing for Slate, David Edelstein commented Crash "might even have been a landmark film about race relations had its aura of blunt realism not been dispelled by a toxic cloud of dramaturgical pixie dust.

Scott of the New York Times described it as "a frustrating movie: full of heart and devoid of life; crudely manipulative when it tries hardest to be subtle; and profoundly complacent in spite of its intention to unsettle and disturb.

[45] Clarisse Loughrey of the Independent wrote, "By presenting racism as nothing more than a personality issue in need of a fix, Crash absolves its white audience of any sense of collective responsibility.

[49] The film has been described as using multicultural and sentimentalist imagery to cover over material and "historically sedimented inequalities" that continue to affect various racial groups in Los Angeles.

[50] In a retrospective review, Tim Grierson of The New Republic opined, "Haggis has characters hurl nasty epithets at one another, as if that's the most corrosive aspect of discrimination, failing to acknowledge that what's most destructive aren't the shouts but, rather, the whispers—the private jokes and long-held prejudices shared by likeminded people behind closed doors and far from public view.

"[51] The film was also criticized for depicting the Persian shopkeeper as a "deranged, paranoid individual who is only redeemed by what he believes is a mystical act of God".

[58][59] After announcing the award, presenter Jack Nicholson was caught on camera mouthing the word "whoa" out of apparent surprise at the result.

[61] Critic Kenneth Turan suggested that Crash benefited from homophobia among Academy members,[62][63] some of whom openly voiced their discomfort with Brokeback Mountain due to its subject matter.

"[47] In February 2024, David Fear of Rolling Stone ranked Crash as the worst Best Picture Oscar winner of the 21st century, criticizing what he described as the movie’s heavy-handed symbolism and its various caricatures.

The cast consists of a Brentwood mother (Clare Carey), her real-estate developer husband (D. B. Sweeney), a former gang member-turned-EMT (Brian Tee), a street-smart driver (Jocko Sims), an undocumented Guatemalan immigrant (Luis Chavez), and a detective (Nick Tarabay).