The Hire
film series
The BMW film series The Hire consists of eight short films (averaging about ten minutes each) produced for internet distribution in 2001 and 2002. A form of branded content, the shorts were directed by popular filmmakers from around the globe and starred Clive Owen as "the Driver" while highlighting the performance aspects of various BMW automobiles. The series made a comeback in 2016, fourteen years after its original run ended.
Premise
This series of short films center on a nameless protagonist, known as "The Driver" (Clive Owen), who is a highly-proficient professional driver of BMW automobiles. The plot of each film varies, but each involves the Driver being hired to perform tasks for a client, typically to transport important individuals and/or cargo while evading pursuit.
Summary
Season 1
Ambush
While escorting an elderly man in the middle of the night, the Driver is confronted by a van full of armed thieves and is told that the old man is carrying a large amount of diamonds. The old man claims to have swallowed the diamonds and that the men will likely cut him open to retrieve them. The Driver decides to save his client and attempts to evade the van while being shot at. The Driver eventually baits the thieves into dying in a collision with a parked bulldozer. The Driver delivers the old man to his destination and asks if he really swallowed the diamonds.
The public source identifies “The Hire” as film series. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Hire, film and series.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “The Hire”, the useful work is to connect “film series” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q512499. The first chronological checks are 2001, 2002 and 2016.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “The Hire”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow The Hire primary sources, The Hire archive and Hire research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Hire”?
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “The Hire” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.