Average Rating: 8.7/10
Reviews Counted: 46
Fresh: 45 | Rotten: 1
This tense, paranoid thriller presents Francis Ford Coppola at his finest -- and makes some remarkably advanced arguments about technology's role in society that still resonate today.
Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 4
Fresh: 4 | Rotten: 0
This tense, paranoid thriller presents Francis Ford Coppola at his finest -- and makes some remarkably advanced arguments about technology's role in society that still resonate today.
liked it
Average Rating: 4.1/5
User Ratings: 29,754
Made between The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974), and in part an homage to Michelangelo Antonioni's art-movie classic Blow-Up (1966), The Conversation was a return to small-scale art films for Francis Ford Coppola. Sound surveillance expert Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) is hired to track a young couple (Cindy Williams and Frederic Forrest), taping their conversation as they walk through San Francisco's crowded Union Square. Knowing full well how technology can invade privacy, Harry
Apr 7, 1974 Wide
Dec 12, 2000
Paramount Pictures
All Critics (47) | Top Critics (4) | Fresh (50) | Rotten (1) | DVD (28)
A major artistic asset to the film -- besides script, direction and the top performances -- is supervising editor Walter Murch's sound collage and re-recording.
Coppola manages to turn an expert thriller into a portrayal of the conflict between ritual and responsibility without ever letting the levels of tension subside or the complicated plot get muddled.
Haunting and bothersome.
A taut, intelligent thriller.
Listening in on The Conversation has never been so rewarding, thanks to Lionsgate's stunning new 1080p transfer and wealth of extras, both old and new.
A film OF the 1970s, The Conversation is rooted in the new American anxiety of the time, the idea that behind every ideal was a rotten, festering truth.
The Conversation is for me the masterpiece of American cinema.
Coppola may have made films of a more spectacular nature but here he makes a virtue of a introversion - so that the film's horror moment is all the more vibrantly terrible when set in relief.
Coppola shows off his arty aspirations by doing for audio technology what Antonioni did for photography. But The Conversation is a different animal entirely, steering clear of the existential dilemmas in Antonioni's film and creating a character pi
There's a strong case to be made for The Conversation being Coppola's greatest film. Which, when you consider what else he's made, is high praise indeed.
A movie of real authority.
This is one of Coppola's masterpieces, a prophetic film about paranoia, the growing role of technology in our daily lives, and the impossibility of privacy even in public spaces.
A bleak and devastatingly brilliant film.
An absorbing character study of a paranoid loner. Hackman is superb.
brilliant conspiracy thriller
Every time I see a great Francis For Coppola movie like The Godfathers, Apocalypse Now, and The Conversation I think how'd this guy make Jack, but I guess that's beside the point. The Conversation is a very slow moving but oddly hypnotizing film. Gene Hackman gives a great low-key performance as audio-surveillance
June 30, 2011
Super Reviewer
Another great film on paranoia from the best decade for American cinema.
June 9, 2011Super Reviewer
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