Crash is a 2004 American drama film

Drama film

A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 co-written, produced, and directed by Paul Haggis

Paul Haggis

Paul Edward Haggis is a Canadian screenwriter, producer, and director. He spent his early career producing and directing various American and Canadian television network series.-Early life and education:...

. The film is about racial

Racism

Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

 and social

Classism

Classism is prejudice or discrimination on the basis of social class. It includes individual attitudes and behaviors, systems of policies and practices that are set up to benefit the upper classes at the expense of the lower classes...

 tensions in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. A self-described "passion piece" for Haggis, Crash was inspired by a real life incident in which his Porsche

Porsche

Porsche Automobil Holding SE, usually shortened to Porsche SE a Societas Europaea or European Public Company, is a German based holding company with investments in the automotive industry....

 was carjacked

Carjacking

Carjacking is a form of hijacking, where the crime is of stealing a motor vehicle and so also armed assault when the vehicle is occupied. Historically, such as in the rash of semi-trailer truck hijackings during the 1960s, the general term hijacking was used for that type of vehicle abduction,...

 outside a video store on Wilshire Boulevard

Wilshire Boulevard

Wilshire Boulevard is one of the principal east-west arterial roads in Los Angeles, California, United States. It was named for Henry Gaylord Wilshire , an Ohio native who made and lost fortunes in real estate, farming, and gold mining. Henry Wilshire initiated what was to become Wilshire...

 in 1991. It won three Oscars: Best Picture

Academy Award for Best Picture

The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...

, Best Original Screenplay

Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay)

The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Award for the best script not based upon previously published material. Before 1940, there was an Academy Award for Best Story for writing. For 1940, it and the award in this article were separated into two awards. Beginning with the...

 and Best Editing in 2005 at the 78th Academy Awards

78th Academy Awards

The 78th Academy Awards honored the best films of 2005 and were held on March 5, 2006, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California. They were hosted by The Daily Show host Jon Stewart, with Tom Kane making his first appearance as the show's announcer...

.

Several characters' stories interweave during two days in Los Angeles; a black

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 LAPD

Los Angeles Police Department

The Los Angeles Police Department is the police department of the city of Los Angeles, California. With just under 10,000 officers and more than 3,000 civilian staff, covering an area of with a population of more than 4.1 million people, it is the third largest local law enforcement agency in...

 detective estranged from his mother, his criminal younger brother and gang associate, the white

White American

White Americans are people of the United States who are considered or consider themselves White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa...

 District Attorney

District attorney

In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...

 and his irritated and pampered wife, a racist white police officer who disgusts his more idealistic younger partner, an African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 Hollywood director and his wife who must deal with the officer, a Persian

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

-immigrant father who is wary of others, and a Hispanic

Hispanic American

Hispanic American may refer to:*An inhabitant of one of the countries of Hispanic America *A person of Hispanic ancestry who is citizen, resident or other in the United States of America...

 locksmith and his young daughter.
The film opens following a car accident involving Los Angeles detectives Graham Waters (Don Cheadle

Don Cheadle

Donald Frank "Don" Cheadle, Jr. is an American film actor and producer. Cheadle rose to prominence in the late 1990s and the early 2000s for his supporting roles in the Steven Soderbergh-directed films Out of Sight, Traffic, and Ocean's Eleven...

), his partner Ria (Jennifer Esposito

Jennifer Esposito

Jennifer Esposito is an American actress, dancer and model, known for her appearances in films such as I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, Summer of Sam and Crash and in television series such as Spin City, The Looney Tunes Show and Samantha Who?.-Early life:Esposito, an Italian-American, was...

), and Kim Lee.