The French Connection

45th Anniversary Screening

This gritty and gripping police thriller won five Academy Awards in 1971, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Gene Hackman, and Best Screenplay. Beyond its adrenaline-fueled chase scenes, the movie boasted acute characterizations and potent social commentary about the moral compromises that may be endemic to police work. It also stands as one of the most vivid renditions of a decaying New York City ever committed to celluloid. Roy Scheider and Bunuel favorite Fernando Rey (as the suave European criminal kingpin) co-star. Reviews were ecstatic. Judith Crist called it “a movie-movie supreme.” Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times wrote that The French Connection was “a slam-bang, suspenseful, plain-spoken, sardonically funny, furiously paced melodrama.” Even highbrow Stanley Kauffmann, writing in The New Republic, hailed “the most exciting picture I’ve seen since Z.”

William Friedkin, one of the key figures in the American cinematic renaissance of the 1970s, has directed such other films as The Birthday Party, The Boys in the Band, the enormously successful The Exorcist, Sorcerer, To Live and Die in L.A., Rules of Engagement, and the more recent Killer Joe.