Deathsport is a 1978 science fiction action sports B-film produced by Roger Corman and directed by Allan Arkush and Nicholas Niciphor. The film stars David Carradine and Playboy Playmate Claudia Jennings. It would be one of Jennings' last films before her death.

"A thousand years from tomorrow" after the Neutron Wars, the world is divided into a barbaric collection of city states surrounded by wastelands where only mutant cannibals and independent warriors, known as Range Guides, can live. Led by Lord Zirpola, the city state of Helix is planning war on another city state, Tritan, for their fuel supply. Hoping to prove the superiority of their newest weapons, the Death Machines (laser-equipped dirt bikes), they create a new pastime – Deathsport.

The death penalty has been replaced by Deathsport, where criminals battle each other to the death in return for gaining their freedom. Lord Zirpola has managed to capture legendary Range Guide Kaz Oshay and he wants to add a female Range Guide for an upcoming Deathsport event. A female Range Guide, Deneer, is captured while leading a group of Tritans across the desert. A child, Tara, is taken by the mutant group during the attack to capture Deneer. In a Helix jail, Kaz Oshay bonds with Deneer and vows to escape with her and find the group's child.

After enduring torture and facing his mother's killer, Ankar Moor, Oshay and Deneer are forced onto the Deathsport motocross field, which is mined with explosives. They easily defeat the other riders and escape from Helix with two other prisoners, Dr. Karl and his son Marcus. During the escape, though, the doctor is killed.

Eventually, they rescue Tara from the mutant cannibals and battle the other Death Machine riders who followed them. Finally safe, Deneer delivers Marcus to Tritan, while Oshay faces Ankar Moor in "honorable" combat, using Whistlers (swords that make a sound like music). After a bloody battle, Oshay decapitates Ankar Moor, thus becoming the greatest Range Guide alive. The film ends with Oshay, Deneer and Tara riding their horses off into the sunset.

The film was intended as a follow-up to Death Race 2000 (1975), only with motorcycles instead of cars. Corman had a commitment with David Carradine to have him as a star under a five-picture contract that he had signed with the actor, and had gotten Charles B. Griffith to write a script. However, Corman was unhappy with the script.

Allan Arkush, who worked at New World at the time, recalled Corman "offered it [the film] to everybody and nobody wanted to do it, because it was really half-baked and Death Race 2000 was a really good movie." Nicholas Niciphor, a recent graduate of USC, was given the job of rewriting and directing the film. Niciphor got the job on the recommendation of Joe Roth, who admired Niciphor's short films. Niciphor said that he had less than two weeks to write and pre-produce the film. He also said that Carradine was reluctant to do the film, as he was making more prestigious films at the time, and would only be available for 21 days.

In an interview from 2005, David Carradine said that Corman had advised him not to do Deathsport: "He was right too. I knew it the moment I saw the picture. He warned me and I didn't listen. He was determined not to pay anybody, except me. He didn't want to put any money into it. He paid me what I was worth back then – this was right after the Ingmar Bergman picture – and that was pretty much the whole budget of the movie."